Page 38 of The Shadow Wand

TIERNEY CALIX

SixthMonth

Eastern Realm,

the Wyvernguard’s South Twin Island

Bleary-eyed and dressed in battered Noi garb, Tierney steps down the rune ship’s lowered stairs, following closely behind Kiya Wen and Soyil Vho, her young Vu Trin protectors these past few weeks. The soldiers’ dark backs before her, Tierney strides onto the Wyvernguard’s night-darkened landing platform at the base of the military academy’s South Twin Island mountain.

Down by the mighty Vo River’s edge.

As sapphire-garbed Noi military apprentices stride forward to meet them, Tierney is enveloped by a fulsome Fae awareness of the vast river that now surrounds her, its waters rushing tirelessly north to south just beyond the rune-marked landing platform and its adjacent terraces that seem to ring the island. The black-haired apprentices salute both Kiya Wen and Soyil Vho, fist to heart, as other apprentices secure the ship to the platform’s metal posts, their curious gazes darting toward the new Asrai Water Fae apprentice as they work. Two of them nod at Tierney in amiable greeting.

Tierney nods back at them self-consciously, stunned to be walking among them unglamoured, her long blue hair swinging behind her like an Asrai beacon, her skin a rippling dark blue hue, and her pointed ears dangerously exposed.

She fights the urge to hide herself. To ready herself for escape. To fight for her very existence.

But there’s nothing but welcome in the young soldiers’ eyes.

Feeling as if a crushing weight is slowly lifting from her shoulders, Tierney follows Kiya Wen and Soyil Vho across the broad platform, craning her neck skyward as she takes in the mammoth island-mountain before her.

Tiers upon tiers of obsidian Wyvernguard buildings circle the island-mountain, the narrow landmass rising straight through the clouds like some goddess’s blunt spear. Dragons pulsing with what seems like internal lightning dart in and out of the Wyvernguard’s upper reaches as rune ships encased in shimmering blue haze soar through the night sky and stream over the water like a constellation of restless sapphire stars.

A stiff breeze skimming up from the river catches Tierney in a sudden embrace, ruffling her hair and twining around her body like a beckoning call. The caress sends a ribbon of effervescent euphoria through Tierney, and every one of her senses flares to life, her exhaustion wicked away as she comes to an abrupt halt. Tierney turns to face the great river, frozen in place as she sets her gaze on its vast expanse of shimmering black water just beyond the landing platform and broad adjacent terraces, overcome by the dark grandeur of the largest river in all the Realms.

And the unassailable sense that it has set its whole focus on her.

Tierney sucks in a wavering breath, swept up in an intense emotion she doesn’t fully comprehend. Everything except the river fades to the background—the Vu Trin soldiers, the glowing rune ship, the island-mountain, Voloi’s glimmering coastline—all of it falls aside until there’s only the water.

Only the Vo River.

Churning black waves eddy toward Tierney, first in small, tentative breakers, then larger swells, as if the Vo River’s great expanse is waking up to her presence, its motion independent of the wind and distant ocean’s pull.

A wave breaks over the terrace’s edge, cool spray misting over Tierney, the contact triggering a bolt of sheer elation.

Asrai.

The word rides in on the water, sweeping through her, as tears sting Tierney’s eyes.

Feeling as if she’s fallen into a longed-for dream, Tierney starts for the river, rapidly closing the distance to the terrace’s edge. All the Vu Trin soldiers step back and wordlessly, almost reverently, watch as wave after wave breaks over the terrace’s edge.

Tierney climbs up onto the terrace’s slick stone railing and throws her arms out into an impassioned greeting as the Vo ecstatically crashes against her.

As if joyfully claiming her.

A euphoric cry breaks from Tierney as she surrenders to its call and dives into the water.

The Vo closes around her in an all-encompassing, cool embrace as Tierney glides down into its depths, swept up in the river’s adoration as her Asrai vision wakes, the dark waters lighting up to gleam a deep blue, fish and kelpies streaming in to swim alongside her.

Tierney opens her mouth and pulls in a huge breath of water, fusing with the river, filling her Water Fae lungs with it. Feeling as if she’s finally come home.

Water slicked and still pulsing with elation, Tierney follows Kiya Wen and Soyil Vho through the countless decorated onyx and sapphire hallways of the Wyvernguard’s first-tier barracks as she dries herself by drawing the sweet water from the Vo into her skin.

Their boot heels click over marble floors marked with Vu Trin martial scenes and dragon deities, the sapphire runic light emanating from glass-orb lamps transforming Tierney’s new world into a surreal dreamscape.

Kiya Wen halts before a black wooden door marked, as all the doors on this wing are, with a circular metal plate bearing the design of a crashing wave. The young Vu Trin soldier turns and smiles broadly at Tierney.

“This will be your lodging here,” she informs her in Noi, and Tierney can’t help but touch the Noi translation rune newly emblazoned behind her ear by the Vu Trin—the shock of being able to understand so many languages still a vivid, wondrous thing.

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