Page 183 of The Shadow Wand

“This is the Ash’rion,” Valasca tells me pointedly. “It is a sacred blade. One of the most powerful rune blades my people have ever fabricated. Its elemental power is unparalleled.”

Lukas eyes her with amusement. “Now, how did you ever get hold of that?”

Valasca flashes him a slightly irritated look. “I borrowed it.”

Lukas laughs. “You heretic. That’s used in your religious ceremonies, isn’t it?”

Valasca shrugs noncommittally.

He arches a black brow at her. “Interfering with deep-seated religious boundaries and handing a sacred religious object over to the Black Witch. That’s sure to win the Amaz to our side.”

Chi Nam cuts Lukas an arch look. “The future belongs to those who can move past their preconceived, rigid lines.”

Lukas flashes her a feral grin. “I think the future belongs to those who can learn to decimate Vogel and his Shadow creatures.”

Chi Nam nods at this, chuckling as she says something to Lukas in an obscure dialect not translated by my runes that prompts a knowing smile from Lukas and his own nod of obvious, wry agreement.

“But I’ve known for some time that you’re a complete heathen,” Chi Nam says to him, switching to the Common Tongue. “It’s a reason I’ve always liked you, quite in spite of myself.”

“You like me because I can almost best you,” Lukas shoots back with another grin.

“Careful, child,” Chi Nam says, smiling coolly. “This battle will not go to the recklessly overconfident.”

“How do I use the blade?” I ask them, gripping its hilt as the runes whiz against my skin and send out a staticwhoosh.

“Shall we demonstrate?” Lukas asks Valasca with a relishing look of challenge as he draws his own rune blade.

“Oh, I thought you’d never ask,” Valasca says with a grin, reclaiming the Ash’rion from me. She eyes Lukas wickedly as they face off a few paces away from each other. “You’re on my territory now, Gardnerian.” Her predatory smile broadens. “This is going to be fun. I’ve imagined this moment so many times. It’s a real shame we’re on the same side now.”

Lukas gives her a look of mock caution as he fingers his blade’s hilt then gracefully pulls his arm back, coiled for attack. “Do not permanently maim me.”

Valasca shakes her head as if ruing the situation. “Isowish we were still mortal enemies.” She drops into a fighting stance. “All right, Crow. Give it up. Show me what you’ve got.”

Lukas smiles, and I’ve the sudden sense of his firelines heating to a scald. Whip-fast, he hurls his blade at Valasca, a rush of golden fire bursting to life around the knife and blasting ahead of it toward Valasca.

In a flash Valasca sweeps up her own blade, the image of fractured mirrors crackling into my mind as Lukas’s stream of fire hits her blade’s glinting side. Valasca sweeps her blade down, throwing the fire off to the side as she dodges Lukas’s incoming blade, the streak of fire colliding with a small knot of brush that bursts into a bright blue conflagration.

“I win,” Valasca gloats, her eyes full of confrontational glee.

“I’m just warming up,” Lukas spars back with the trace of a smile, as I’m hit with the vision of silvery fire rushing through his lines. Without warning, Lukas pulls his wand and flicks it toward Valasca, veins of white lightning spearing out ahead of it.

In a blur, Valasca pulls a second blade, her fingers dancing against runes as she holds both blades up in an X before her. Lukas’s lightning slams into the center of the X and doubles back at him.

Lukas flips his wand toward himself and conjures a rippling golden shield over his body, the lightning crackling over him in a shower of sparks before dissipating.

“Show me how to do that,” he says to Valasca as he drops his shield, obviously impressed.

Valasca eyes him incredulously. “Mage-power deflection is an Amaz military secret.”

Lukas is undaunted. “Teach me.”

Valasca snorts out a laugh and narrows a cheeky glare at him. “There are some things I will never share with you, Gardnerian.”

Lukas grins and shoots Valasca a suggestive look. “There aremanythings you will never share with me, Valasca.”

A spike of jealousy flares in me. “Hey now!”

Both of them turn to me with looks of amused incredulity in response to my territorial outburst. I bite my lip, abashed by my reaction to their mutual teasing as heat blooms on my cheeks.

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