Page 192 of The Shadow Wand

“NO!”Pyrgo bellows, louder than a storm, looking as if she’ll burst into joyful flame right there as Wynter is cast into deeper pain and conflict.

For a moment, both Queen Alkaia and Pyrgomanche are quiet as they smile at each other vigorously.

“Who are you, child?” Queen Alkaia prompts, her face taking a turn for the serious.

“The Goddess’s beloved warrior!” Pyrgo cries out.

Queen Alkaia nods solemnly. “And who loves you, Pyrgomanche Feyir?”

“The Free People of Amazakaraan!”

Queen Alkaia’s face takes on a look of fierce triumph as she prods the child forward. “Show us, Pyrgomanche Feyir, beloved of Amazakaraan. Show us your wings!”

Pyrgo hops up from the queen’s lap and steps forward, looking once to the queen for approval, and Queen Alkaia gives her a bolstering nod. Pyrgo’s innocent face bursts into a look of joyful pride as she unfurls her wings, gleaming like opals, to their full size, her eyes lighting with golden flame as a small hawk swoops down to land on her shoulder.

The entire Queen’s Council rises as one and bursts into whoops and cheers, every soldier in the room moving, as one, to salute Pyrgomanche, fists to chests. Tears flow down Alcippe’s cheeks as she places a broad, bolstering hand on the child’s head and Pyrgo glances up at Alcippe with a look of pure devotion.

Something stirs in Wynter’s devastated mind—something small and chained that’s looking to throw off the shackles.

“Who are the Icarals, Pyrgomanche Feyir?” Queen Alkaia says above the ongoing chanting of Goddess blessings.

“Dragonkin!”Pyrgo heartily answers as she ruffles her wings. “Beloved ones of the Goddess!”

Queen Alkaia sets her eyes on Wynter and holds her faltering stare, even as Wynter is caught up in unrelenting agony. “Thisis your future, Wynter Eirllyn,” Queen Alkaia vehemently insists, glancing pointedly at the child. “Thisis your truth. Not the poison the Alfsigr fed you. Not the lies this Zalyn’orsends into your very soul.” Queen Alkaia’s gaze moves to the knot of heavily tattooed women assembled to the Council’s side.

“Circle of Sorcerers,” Queen Alkaia booms out. The room grows silent as the women all rise, each bearing multiple rune styli attached to belt sheaths.

“Yes, Queen Mother,” the most elderly of the women answers, her skin a deep blue, her hair salt white. Glowing scarlet Amaz runes decorate her pointed ears.

“Set your Circle to work on breaking the power of the Zalyn’or,” Queen Alkaia charges. She turns her vivid green eyes on Sylmire. “Sylmire Talonir, I grant you amnesty in Amaz lands. You will work with the Circle and tell them all that you know.” Queen Alkaia’s gaze hardens. “The time has come to free Wynter Eirllyn and Ysilldir Illyrindor and raise a force to free all of the women of sunland Elfinkin.”

Wynter’s small spark of hope blinks out of existence even as sounds of vigorous support for the queen’s declaration go up all around.

Wynter can barely hear anything above the roiling agony overtaking her.

If the Zalyn’or is imprisoning her, she wants to be freed. And she wants all the women of Alfsigroth to be freed, as well.

But she desperately wants Cael and Rhys to be freed too.

And they aremale.

The tears coating Wynter’s face are cool on her cheeks as she sits by Ysilldir on a large, broad rock overlooking the city of Cyme as twilight descends. Dense wilds are at their backs and a broad field slopes down before them, the city splayed out just beyond to fill the enormous bowl-shaped valley.

It seems as if every owl in the forest has come to Wynter this eve, a small screech owl with pale gold eyes and caramel feathers perching on her shoulder, countless other owls settled in the surrounding trees.

Their steady aura of warning bears down against Wynter and Ysilldir’s combined silence. Along with their projected image of an unnatural, twisting Shadow.

Wrapped up in both the birds’ foreboding and a near-debilitating worry for Cael and Rhys, Wynter turns and takes in the tense lines of Ysilldir’s face as the Elfin warrior peers over the city, her friend’s reed-straight back unmarred and unpolluted by wings.

All too aware of her own cursed wings, Wynter pulls them in, painfully tight, as if seeking to punish them. To force pain into them as her own penance for being born an Icaral.

Shame. Shame. Shame.

“What do you think we would be like without the Zalyn’or?” Ysilldir asks Wynter in Alfsigr, breaking into the joint quiet and Wynter’s tortured thoughts.

“I...don’t know,” Wynter hesitantly answers, her words strained as the owls send their constant stream of warning through her, their low undercurrent of foreboding a much more intimidating thing than the excitable chittering of so many of their avian brethren.

Ysilldir turns, her silver gaze lit with urgency. “We need to get these necklaces off.”

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