Page 97 of The Shadow Wand

Lachlan scowls, his voice taut with anger as he tosses the stone back. “Wipe that smirk off your face. You’ve provoked a war.”

“That they cannot win. That they’re exhausting all their Western forces on. For an ill-guided suicide mission fueled by pride.”

Lachlan glares at his son. “What did Vogel make of your games?”

Lukas considers his glass. “I think he was partly amused.” His expression darkens. “Partly not.”

“You have been sparring with that womanfar too long.”

Lukas smiles, catlike. “She’s clever. Delightfully unpredictable.”

“This isno game.”

“So I’ve been told. I’m to redeem myself by killing her.” He shakes his head in obvious dismay. “A waste.”

“Lukas, you have talent and power, to be sure.” Lachlan’s biting off the words now. “But you would do well to have some of your brother’s commitment and his gravity. That woman isVu Trin.And their most powerful sorceress, at that. And now, thanks to you, we’re embroiled in a war with her kind. Yet you speak of her with fondness. Where is your loyalty?”

Lukas’s expression hardens. “By sparring with her, Father, I learn what they can do. The limits of their rune sorcery.”

Lachlan grows quiet, seeming to consider the point.

Lukas swirls his glass absently, flashes of gold from the firelight reflecting off the crystal. “I have one month to assassinate Chi Nam, or Vogel’s revoking my command. And he’ll place me under the command of Damion Bane.”

“Perhaps an incentive you’ll understand and heed.”

The side of Lukas’s mouth lifts. “And I need to control my lovely fastmate.”

The hairs on the back of my neck bristle with alarm.

“The Gardner girl is trouble.” Lachlan scowls. “Your mother’s distraught over this fasting, and you know how I feel about the girl.”

“Yes, well, you’ve both forgotten what’s in her blood.”

Lachlan tips his head in consideration as the fireplace crackles. “She’s from the strongest of bloodlines, to be sure,” he tersely allows. “There is no finer line.”

“Vogel senses the power in her,” Lukas says, matter-of-fact. “He knows she can’t access it, but our children would likely be quite powerful. Vogel wants me to sire an army of Mages brimming with Carnissa Gardner’s blood.” He raises his glass slightly in a loose toast. “He’s insisting on a Sealing ceremony. Tomorrow night.”

The blood rushes from my head.

He’s lying. He has to be lying.

“Vogel will preside over the sacred occasion himself and reset the spell,” Lukas continues.

Shock blasts through me anew, the room seeming to shift, the walls closing in.

No. I can’t have that Shadow Wand anywhere near me.

Lukas takes another sip from his glass and looks at his father through narrowed eyes. “That’s how much power Vogel senses in her, Father. Enough to take an evening to see us properly sealed, even with Vu Trin staging war games along the Eastern Pass.”

When Lachlan finally speaks, his tone is astonished. “So, we’re to pull together your Sealing ceremony in one day’s time? With war breaking out?”

“The Vu Trin attack has been all but put down. And the Sealing can be a small affair.”

Lachlan’s tone grows rigid with anger. “Have you forgotten who you are?”

“I don’t have time for the nonsense attached to Sealing ceremonies.”

“High Mage Vogel is presiding!”

---