Page 202 of The Shadow Wand

It’s impossible to lie to them.

Tierney holds Viger’s unsettling stare and decides to go for broke and let him in. It’s the only chance she has to make himsee. He has to understand her completely, otherwise he’ll likely turn her in for treason.

Tierney pulls in a long, wavering breath and internally lets go, opening up all her fears to him.

Viger’s eyes widen a fraction then narrow in tight.

Tierney gasps as everything darkens and she’s cast into the sense of hurtling down from a great height, her breath shuddering as Viger’s thrall takes rigid hold, a deeper darkness enfolding them both as everything cuts out—the rain, the wind, the riot of sapphire rune light tossed about by the waves, all vanished.

All except for Viger and his all-encompassingstare.

“Elloren Gardner is not what they think,” Tierney says against his darkness, the two of them now encased in it, Viger’s form dimly lined in silver.

A raven blinks into view, perched on his shoulder.

“She is the Black Witch,” he states with chilling certainty. “The forest echoes this. My ravens echo this.” His voice deepens to the point that Tierney can feel it low in her center. “Theirfearechoes this.”

Rebellion rises in Tierney. “She may well be, Viger. But...don’t you believe that things can run deeper than everyone thinks?”

“Like you?” Viger says, silky smooth. The words send a warm disturbance through Tierney’s magic, and she struggles to ignore how enticing it feels. Tierney knows it’s odd that she’s both intrigued by Viger as well as terrified and repulsed by aspects of him. These Death Fae are all like mythical figures hovering around the edges of this place, unsettling the comforting sense of order.

Throwing Death into the mix.

I will not reveal you, Viger sounds in her mind.

Tierney’s apprehension whirls around the thought.

Is he saying he won’t turn her in?

“If you could be a tad less cryptic, Viger,” she snaps, “it would be helpful.”

They’re coming, Viger responds, a slight smile lifting his mouth as he draws back his thrall. The wind, the rain, the flash of lightning all rush back in and around them both, soaking his coal-dark uniform, his spiky hair, his pale face and pointed ears.

A huge wave crests and crashes over the banister as kelpies form and leap onto the huge platform.

Tierney turns to face them, their hooves splashing as they take solid, rippling form, limned by the terrace’s sapphire rune light.

Es’tryl’lyan comes forward, and Tierney moves to meet with him, thrown by the strange terror in his eyes. The kelpie lowers his powerful head, and Tierney raises her arm to hold his flowing, watery form, her kelpie smooth and solid but covered in rushing water that flows over Tierney’s hand.

And that’s when she feels it—the intense rush of alarm flowing from the army of kelpies.

Warning. Warning. Warning.

She’s accosted by a sudden vision, thrust into her from the kelpies’ minds.

Tierney closes her own eyes as she reads their collective thoughts, reads what they’ve found in the Vo forest.

Viger’s darkness is suddenly whipping around the edges of her mind along with the kelpies’ images.

What are you reading in them, Tierney Calix?His words seem to come from everywhere at once.

“Something unnatural,” Tierney says, her throat cinching tight. “Animals that should not be here. Some of them filled with an unbalancing power. Something...unnatural in it that could shred the matrix of nature.”

What have they found?Viger thinks again, his presence in her mind sending the hairs on the back of Tierney’s neck prickling, his dark thrall intensifying.

“They’re creatures I’ve seen only in books. Creatures of the desert. Insects. Like something from a nightmare.” Tierney turns away from Es’tryl’lyan’s dark, feral stare and meets Viger’s. “Scorpios,” she tells him breathlessly, her heartbeat picking up speed. “They found a swarm of desert scorpios, here in the forests of the Eastern Realm.”

Part Six

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