Page 208 of The Shadow Wand

“What are youdoing?” I cry at her.

Valasca leans in, her mouth a snarl. “Your training starts now, as we agreed.”

“Not this way!”

“Yes, this way!” Valasca vehemently snarls back. “Completely our way, Elloren! This isexactlyhow it works in Amazakaraan.”

I want to scream at her. I want to lash out at them both. I glare at Lukas, stunned by his change in demeanor from last night, but he simply looks back at me with an expression of immovable resolve.

“Fine!” I cry, furious and humiliated as Valasca tugs me along beside her, Lukas following, as I shiver and hurl epithets at them in my mind.

Valasca yanks me down a tunneling passage that descends into the Vonor mountain’s base. Sparsely placed lanterns emit faint blue light to cut through the darkness, the rhythmicplinkof water on stone becoming audible as the narrow passage eventually opens to reveal a vaulted cavern. A dark river of water courses through it, the space lit by several huge Noi runes marked on the deep-gray rocky walls.

Water-drawing runes.

I fleetingly wonder if Chi Nam built this entire river.

Either Valasca or Lukas—or both—has already been here this morning, I can tell. There are a variety of weapons lined up on the surface of a huge, broad stone, and Vu Trin clothing and gear, including a folded towel, is neatly set out on another rocky table near the stream’s edge.

“Get in,” Valasca orders as we halt just before the streaming water.

Shivering, I dip my toe in the water and find it painfully cold. I whip my head around toward her. “It’s too cold...”

“Learn not to care,” Valasca says as she shoves me forward.

I fall face-first into the icy water and gasp, a blast of frigid pain knifing through me as I fall under its rune-lit surface, lines of black and blue rippling before my eyes, the stream deep with no solid purchase. My arms and legs flail against the freezing current as I fight back to the surface, coughing and sputtering as I break through and grab hold of some slick, irregular rock along the stone bank, my skin almost burning from the cold.

My feet make contact with a rocky shelf, and I scramble to find some purchase to lift myself out of the stream, almost slipping back in.

I finally manage to hoist myself onto the stone ledge, scraping my knee in the process. Trembling violently from the cold, I grab the towel to dry myself and glare hatefully at Valasca and Lukas, cursing under my breath.

Lukas is leaning against the cave’s wall, arms crossed, watching me unsympathetically with none of his usual heat.

“Are you done?” I cry at them both. “What is this accomplishing?”

Valasca shoves a clean undergarment at me. Noi garb. Loose black linen pantalets embroidered with a small white dragon.

“Just the dhunya for now,” Valasca orders, and I throw the undergarment on, cinching the drawstring tight, the embarrassment from being so undressed rapidly overtaken by angry resentment.

Valasca pulls out her rune stylus, all business as she surveys my form and I stand there shivering.

I look to Lukas, searching for something of who he was last night. The man I completely gave myself to and took as mine in return. But he’s all hard edges and closed off. Almost confrontational. On some level I understand his sudden harshness, even though it stings. This shift had to happen. My encounter with the wraith bats made it clear that I’m too emotional. Too quick to panic.

Too quick to cave in.

I pull in a wavering breath and rein in my anger.

They’re trying to help me.

Valasca surveys the tattoo-like rune chains that are draped all over my chest, as if checking on the source of my glamour. Then she touches her rune stylus to my abdomen.

Sage’s Smaragdalfar demon-sensing rune lights up a glowing emerald through my gray Elfhollen glamour.

“Amazing,” Valasca mutters with a pointed glance toward Lukas. “The potency of a Light Mage’s markings.” She shakes her head, as if in awe of Sage’s artistry, then lowers herself onto one knee beside me and begins drawing glowing blue Noi runes down the side of my leg, a harder, fleeting sting following her marks than when Sage drew her emerald runes.

“What are you marking on me?” I begrudgingly ask, my mortification over standing here topless rapidly dissipating.

“A series of runes that will draw on your affinity auras,” Valasca replies as she concentrates on forming the runes. “They’ll amplify the elemental power in all the Noi and Amaz weapon runes that resonate with your affinities.”

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