Page 121 of The Shadow Wand

So, there it is.Everyone in the room knows that I’m the Black Witch, but they’re still here, none of them running from the Witch of Prophecy. They’re a surprising group of allies, but allies nonetheless.

Allies that I’m grateful for.

Sparrow looks to the tree clock that’s on a nearby shelf then sets her unflinching gaze on me. “We need to get you cleaned up and mend your dress. Fast. It’s almost time to go.”

CHAPTER FOUR

THE SEALING

ELLOREN GARDNER

Sixth Month

Valgard, Gardneria

Aunt Vyvian’s grip on my arm tightens as she guides me down the night-darkened main hall of the Grey estate, my leaf-decorated skirts swishing. She says nothing to me, her eyes focused militantly forward, as if I’ve ceased to be worthy of any conversation, and her silence unnerves me as my fear of Vogel mounts.

Emerald fire torches set on iron vine-decorated poles bracket us on both sides, the broad, dark corridor washed in their green illumination. The verdant flames lick the darkness, creating the illusion that the carpet’s twisting root pattern is undulating like snakes beneath my feet. Ironwood trunks and branches rise on either side of us and curve over the hallway’s domed ceiling. Interlocking glass panes are set between the tangling branches overhead to reveal the evening’s stormy sky, all the decor creating the illusion that we’re engulfed in an ancient forest.

Lightning forks overhead, followed by a low roll of thunder.

My gaze darts warily around the shadowed alcoves as I imagine the shapes of assassins lurking, my chest tight with jumped-up apprehension as tempestuous fire gutters through my lines. High-level Mage soldiers stand motionless by each torch, their green-lit faces carefully blank as their eyes track me.

So many Level Five Mages in one place.

Aunt Vyvian guides me toward a huge archway formed by two enormous bending Ironwood trees, and we pause at the threshold.

The ballroom’s entrance is bracketed by six Level Five soldiers, but all this pales in comparison to what lies before me.

A forest tunnel.

Created by two long lines of high-level Mages, each soldier holding a large curving pine branch angled toward the central path before me. The soldiers at the farthest end of the aisle are angling their branches down, blocking what lies at the end of the path from view.

It’s traditional, this dark tunnel, symbolic of the dark times when Mages were cast into the shadows of the “Heathen Wilds.” But knowing this does nothing to diminish the wave of fright that swamps me as Aunt Vyvian releases her tight grip on my arm.

It has the look of an inescapable cave.

A cave I know Vogel is lurking at the end of.

My pulse spikes as Aunt Vyvian gives my back a light shove and I step into the tunnel, willing myself forward, the branches behind and above me closing in so that I’m cast in almost total darkness. The smell of pine sap is sharp on the warm air, only a hazy tracery of deep-green light filtering through the dense branches as I warily move closer to what lies beyond.

As I reach the center of the path, the branches ahead of me pull back in a wave to reveal Marcus Vogel standing at the far end of the tunnel.

His pale green gaze hits me like a blow and I freeze, the force of it igniting both a raw, primal fear as well as a hard spike of defiance.

Vogel is standing behind an altar wrought from a twisted Ironwood trunk, two military envoys standing behind him. He’s bathed in green torchlight, the planes of his elegant face glimmering emerald.

His Shadow Wand in hand.

The Wand sheathed against my thigh thrums with a sudden, urgent energy that quickly blinks out, as if the Wand is in rapid retreat.

As if it’s hiding from a monster.

I repress a surge of stifling, amorphous fright and will my legs to move toward Vogel, my defiance hardening.

The branches tunneling over me suddenly pull back, the wave of greenery retreating on both sides as Lukas steps toward the altar and into full view.

My heart arrests at the sight of him. He’s stunning, and I can’t tear my eyes away from his tall form.

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