Page 177 of The Shadow Wand

Lukas leans against Valasca’s boulder with his usual casual grace, his eyes trained on me.

“Are you sure you’re well shielded?” I shrilly ask Chi Nam, remembering how much longer it took the Vu Trin to shield themselves properly against the devastating onslaught of my magic.

Chi Nam leans into her staff and nods. “There’s much more power at work here between the three of us.”

I swallow hard and turn again toward the vast stretch of crimson desert before me, heat gaining ground as the sun rises farther from the horizon’s storm band.

Battling back my intense trepidation, I grit my teeth, raise the branch, and begin to speak the candle-lighting spell.

Power starts its whooshing rumble up from the ground beneath my feet, then branches through my legs in a tingling rush, like a fast-moving current.

Then all of the power streams toward my wand hand like an arrow shot from a crossbow then whips backward.

My power gives a hard flare, my eyes widening as my affinity lines cinch painfully inward with a brutal force that drives the breath from my lungs. My lines contract more intensely, and I double over, forced to my knees and onto the sandy ground as if yanked there by a savagely coordinated attack. And I can feel where the multiple points of cruel tension are originating from.

The desert trees.

I gasp for air, immobilized by my own lines as Lukas distantly calls my name and the power continues to ricochet backward from my wand hand, flying right into the affinity lines balled up in my center. Unbearable heat flares deep inside me, then gives a sudden, violent burst outward, and the world explodes into flames.

I cry out to Lukas as fire cuts off my vision and scalds through me. The whole world enveloped in fire.

I can hear Lukas yelling an incoherent spell through the inferno’s fierce roar as a punishing wind lashes against me, knocking me onto my side and rapidly snuffing out the conflagration, a choking black smoke rising into the heated air.

Lukas rushes in through the smoke, drops down to his knees, and grabs hold of me. Chi Nam and Valasca are tight on his heels, their shield dropped, as Lukas flicks his wand and snarls out urgent spells, clearing the rest of the smoke away with a spiraling rush of wind.

“Elloren,”he says with ferocious urgency, more rattled than I’ve ever seen him, his eyes blazing as I cough and gasp for breath.

Wildly alarmed, I look around frantically.

The landscape is unharmed. Lukas and Chi Nam and Valasca are unharmed. And they’re all gaping at me in obvious shock.

“What happened?” I ask breathlessly, my voice rough from the rising smoke. “There was fire everywhere...”

“You burst into flames,” Valasca explains. “A lotof flames.”

“You exploded,” Chi Nam says.

My gaze flits toward the trees as I’m swept into a terrible certainty.

“The trees did this,” I tell them, outrage kindling as a deeper realization takes root. “They mapped my lines. They’ve been mapping them for weeks and finally got a clear view of them. They forced the flow of my power inward, away from my wand hand. Then they waited for the right moment and attacked.”

I meet Lukas’s eyes, a terrible comprehension passing between us.

Lukas’s jaw tenses as he turns and narrows his gaze at the trees, then looks back to me, seeming rattled. “Are you saying that they’ve completely infiltrated your lines?”

My outrage explodes. “I’m saying that they tried tomurderme! The only reason I’m alive is because...” The reason strikes home.

Because Yvan kissed me and I’m immune to fire.

I take a deep, shuddering breath and flex my wand hand, then meet Lukas’s gaze once more. “I survived because I have Wyvernfire in my lines and Ican’tbe burned.”

A lash of invisible affinity fire flashes out from Lukas, jealous heat in it, there and gone again in a heartbeat.

“Let me read them,” Lukas says. “Let me read your lines.”

I nod, realizing what he’s asking. Lukas’s grip on me firms and he pulls me close and brings his lips to mine. His fire rushes into me, his branches spiraling over my painfully knotted lines. But it’s all wrong, the map of my lines completely skewed and tangled.

He pulls back and sets his severe gaze on Chi Nam. “She’s right. The trees must have mapped her affinity lines while she was traveling through the forest. Then they waited until now, when she was unshielded, and attacked.” He sends the trees a vicious look, as if sizing them up in a new way. “Clever,” he says under his breath.

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