Page 20 of The Shadow Wand

Sparrow meets Effrey’s fearful eyes in the darkness, a shaft of moonlight spearing in from a nearby window that’s visible through the door’s wooden slats.

The door to the barn creaks open then slams, and Sparrow’s throat constricts. She hugs Effrey tight, the two of them crouching against the walls in the stall’s farthest shadowy corner, the dragon still hidden beneath Effrey’s wet cloak.

A tremor kicks up inside Sparrow as footsteps stalk toward them, lamplight arcing chaotically over the walls.

A young Gardnerian man with severe, elegant features and soldier’s garb comes into view through the iron bars, moving in with a vengeance, the rage trailing off him a palpable thing. Breathing heavily, his jaw set tight, he roughly sets his lantern on the window’s sill. There’s a luminescent deep-green rune stamped on his neck and black unsealed fastlines marking his hands. He snags a crimson glass bottle from behind a hay bale, hoists it, unstoppers it, and takes an angry swig. Sparrow can smell the medicinal stink clear through the stall.

Spirits.

Her fear notches higher. Sparrow knows what happens when these Mages drink spirits and find themselves alone with Urisk women.

She holds her breath as Effrey’s small frame trembles against her.

Don’t find us. Don’t find us.

The desperate plea slams out with every beat of Sparrow’s heart. Her sweat-dampened hand slowly moves under her skirt’s hem to find the hilt of her knife as she readies herself to sink her blade straight through the white bird marking the Crow’s chest, even though he has a wand sheathed at his side and Level Five Mage stripes marking his uniform’s sleeves.

The young man sets down the bottle and angrily yanks off his tunic.

Alarm bolts through Sparrow as his body is scandalously exposed, hard muscles flexing, his Gardnerian skin glimmering deep green in the lantern light.

Breathing heavily, the angry young man pauses to peer down at the military tunic fisted in his hand, seeming like he would murder the uniform with his blazing green eyes if he could. Then he takes hold of the bottle and pours the spirits all over the tunic, all over himself, and all over the surrounding straw. He draws his wand and murmurs a spell, and a small fire bursts to life on its tip.

Sparrow’s alarm explodes into full-blown panic as she realizes what he’s about to do.

She jumps up, throws the stall’s gate open, and leaps forward through it, palms out.“Stop!”

The young man’s head whips toward her as he flinches back in obvious shock, his green eyes wild with emotion as Effrey begins to whimper behind Sparrow and Raz’zor lets out a low, threatening growl.

The Mage swallows, his eyes dazed, the fire on his wand’s tip dying down then blinking out of existence.

“What are you doing?” Sparrow asks in a choked rasp, feeling as if the ground is giving way beneath her. She’s used to holding her tongue, but what does it matter how she speaks to this Crow? He has them cornered, wand in hand, and likely realizes they’re escapees from the islands.

The young Mage lowers the wand and stares at Sparrow like she’s an apparition. His gaze slides past her as the dragon’s growl kicks up. Sparrow turns. All the blood drains from her head as a sense of vertigo swamps her.

The dragon is crouched on the straw floor, pale as a beacon and coiled for attack, his slitted eyes aglow with red fire.

And Effrey, sweet Effrey.

The child is holding a rock from the beach in his quivering hand, poised to wield it, the stone shining a bright violet—revealing both Effrey’s forbidden geomancy power and his forbidden gender.

All is lost, Sparrow realizes with a sensation of spiraling descent.It’s over. Raz’zor and Effrey are courageous, to be sure, but a Level Five Mage stands before them.

Sparrow slowly turns back to the cursed Mage with absolutely nothing in the world left to lose.

“Why were you going to explode yourself?” Sparrow demands, ragged voiced, as tears blur her vision.

The Mage swallows, his deep-green eyes filling with what seems like a wild despair. He fists his military tunic and holds it up. “We killed them,” he chokes out, a grave weight to his tone, his mouth trembling into an anguished frown. “Our Guard went into the forest and killed the Dryads. Women. Children. Babies. Itried...” His whole face tenses, as if against a nightmare too devastating to bear. “I tried to hold them off... I couldn’t stop them...” His deep voice breaks, choking off his words.

Their eyes lock and hold, Sparrow’s fear of him momentarily subdued as she takes in the abyss of horror there. Whatever happened to these Dryads is like a violent ripple on a faraway lake, telescoping out to encompass them all, leaving nothing free of its fearsome wake.

“What’s on your neck?” Sparrow asks harshly as she traces a finger along her own neck, then reflexively stops. It’s never a good idea with these Mages to bring attention to one’s body, and this one is already half-undressed. She tightens her grip on her blade’s hilt.

Ready to go down fighting.

The young man’s eyes flick toward the blade impassively, as if he doesn’t much care if Sparrow runs it through him. Then he meets her gaze once more, his lips twisting into a bitter scowl. “The Mage Guard marked me with a trackable rune. So I can’t escape them. My parents paid a lot of money to keep me out of military prison and force me back into soldiering.” His mouth curls into a mirthless smile. “But I won’t be part of any of it anymore,” he seethes, his voice low and impassioned, his eyes now sheening with furious tears.

A flash of understanding passes through the very air between them, and it throws Sparrow into a vortex of confusion.

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