Page 173 of The Shadow Wand

“No,” he says. “But I’ve never been in this much pain before.” His gaze changes, heating as it fixes on mine. “Or wanted anything this much.”

I swallow, caught in the fervency of his look, a deeper tension lighting the air between us. “What is it you want?” I ask, half knowing what his answer will be.

Lukas’s smile fades. “You.”

There’s frustrated yearning in his words. And I’m acutely aware of Chi Nam and Valasca’s silence, their attention clearly settled on us, even though they’re keeping their eyes averted.

“Everyone should get a few hours’ sleep, hmm?” Chi Nam says as she sets aside her tea and gets up with the support of her rune staff. “Valasca and I will take turns as sentry, but there’s likely no need. We’re well protected here.” She unsheathes her rune stylus and holds it up.

The runes on the dome surrounding us brighten, and we’re all bathed in flickering sapphire light as the runes begin to rotate slowly, a brisk current of magic passing through my body.

Chi Nam lowers her stylus, and the dome blinks almost completely out of view, only the dim imprint of a few scattered runes once again hovering in the air.

“These are the same runes that protect the Wyvernguard,” Chi Nam informs us in Noi. “So, rest a bit tonight. We’re safe for the moment.” She motions toward me with a tilt of her rune staff. “Tomorrow, your training begins.”

Lukas holds Valasca’s flask of tirag out to her, and she gets up and accepts it from him, jostling it a bit before turning the flask upside down to show its emptiness, her lips quirking.

“Well, I bet you’re feeling no pain, Gardnerian,” she chides him in Noi, her grin met with Lukas’s own enigmatic smile as she slides the flask back into her tunic’s pocket. “You best sleep this off, Mage Grey. Thanks for saving our asses.”

“I think it was a group effort,” Lukas returns in fluent Noi with a cordial dip of his head.

Valasca huffs out a laugh and shoots him a wry look before throwing sand onto the firepit, casting the ledge into a deeper darkness lit only by the runes on Chi Nam’s glowing staff and the crimson moonlight and constellations. The nighttime desert chill rushes in, swirling around me, but it’s well countered by Lukas’s insistent fire coursing brazenly through my lines.

I look down at my gray skin, my slate nails, dark blue in this light, still a bit astonished to find my coloring devoid of its normal green glow.

I stand up and offer Lukas my hand, but he rises on his own, balling his fist as he carefully flexes his injured arm, then lets out a long, shuddering sigh of relief as he cautiously tests his arm and shoulder’s range of motion, the rune magery coating his wounds dampened to a mellow blue glow, the gash across his chest no longer a broad, gaping wound, but miraculously knit together and already mostly healed.

We follow Chi Nam and Valasca toward the cave, Lukas right behind me.

I glance back at his tall form to find his eyes homed in on me, a rush of his fire simmering through my lines. An unsettling thrill sizzles through me, mixed with bone-deep gratitude for what he’s risked for all of us tonight.

Blue light and warmth envelop us the second we step into the interior of Chi Nam’s Vonor. The light and the heat emanate from sizable crystal orbs hung from iron hooks attached to the walls, Noi runes rotating inside them. We’re surrounded by an indigo-carpeted circular room that appears to be a combined library, armory, and kitchen, bookshelves blasted into stone walls stuffed with volumes in a multitude of languages, a large variety of runic weaponry hung on the walls along with a huge map of the entire Continent of the Realms.

There are additional Noi runes all over the cave, brightening the space with their sapphire light, some drawn on the cave’s walls, some hanging suspended in the air along the periphery of the room, some lining the entire frame of the door we just passed through. And there are other runes as well—a few scarlet Amaz runes, and scattered, suspended emerald runes that I recognize as Smaragdalfar, one of them identical to the rune Sage placed on my abdomen.

“Is this place demon warded?” I ask Chi Nam, pointing to the emerald rune.

Chi Nam smiles approvingly and nods. “Ah, you’re paying attention. Good. You’ll be learning the various runic systems. So we can teach you how to use wands marked with combined sorcery.”

We follow Chi Nam through an entranceway that has a black rune-marked curtain hung over it, through a narrow stone hallway and a small library, then past a dedicated armory.

When we come to another curtained doorway, Chi Nam holds back the rune-marked fabric to reveal what appears to be a sleeping area, the stone floor covered with another circular indigo carpet. A few bedrolls are piled neatly against a wall along with some square embroidered pillows, one bedroll already laid out on the carpeted floor.

“You can each take bedding,” Chi Nam tells us. “Val,” she says to Valasca, “you’re welcome to sleep here in my room.” She turns to Lukas and me and points toward a slim hallway that leads deeper into her network of caves. “I’ve a meditation chamber.” Her eyes flick to me then back to Lukas again, as if trying to gauge the situation between us. “Lukas, you may use that room, and, Elloren, you are free to stay there or here with us.”

My face warms over this formal acknowledgment of Lukas’s and my sealed fasting.

Mage Elloren Grey.

It strikes me anew that Lukas and I have seriously bound ourselves to each other, which kicks up a whole host of conflicting, powerful emotions.

I glance at Lukas to find him steadily watching me, his expression unreadable, but there’s no subtlety in the way his power is running. It’s not the least bit controlled, as it usually is, because of the tirag, no doubt. Instead, it’s blazing hot and rippling through my every line.

The invitation in it clear.

My thoughts scrambled by Lukas’s sultry magical caress, I swallow and pick up two bedrolls and pillows before Lukas can offer to help.

“Well...thank you,” I say awkwardly to Chi Nam, growing flustered. “I’m sure your meditation room will be fine for us.”

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