Page 215 of The Shadow Wand

I wrestle against Vogel’s power, tensing my lines in an effort to throw off his thrall, but his hold is too strong.

Multiple many-eyed wraith bats alight in the nearby trees and on the arcing stone formations all around us, and my desperation spikes as my green Wand begins to hum with frantic energy against my side.

I want to lash out and fight Vogel but I can’t move. He’s taken complete hold of my knotted lines.

I’ve a sudden, internal sense of shimmering green branches curling up from my Wand around the dark tree in my mind.

The Shadow around my lines rears back in an explosion of what feels like furious surprise. Hissing from the contact, it surges in to take an even more vicious hold of my lines.

I rage against Vogel’s hold on me, but it’s no use. My bound-up magic and my Wand and all of my allies are no match for Vogel and his Shadow Wand—it’s too strong.

Vogel is too strong.

Vogel and his Mages stride right up to Chi Nam’s shield and come to a stop before it.

He smiles at Chi Nam, slow and merciless. “You have something that belongs to me, Chilon. Give me my Black Witch.”

Chi Nam raises her chin as she stares Vogel down. “You can’t have her, you fiend.” She slams her staff down onto stone once more, blue light raying out from both her staff and the shield around us.

Vogel scrutinizes Chi Nam without a trace of emotion, as if she’s a particularly diverting insect, as blue rune light flickers over the elegant planes of his face.

All of a sudden, everything is washed in an eruption of golden light that’s burst to life behind me.

Valasca’s head whips back, her eyes widening as she peers just past me. “It’s charged for one,” she rasps out, a new defiance lighting her eyes as her gaze flicks to mine.

It all happens in a split second.

Vogel’s whole demeanor turns vicious as the wraith bats launch themselves from the trees with a collective shriek and all Vogel’s Shadow Mages lift their wands in unison.

Shadow fire bursts from their wands.

Lukas turns and hurls himself toward me just as the Shadow Mages’ wall of flame blazes into Chi Nam’s shield, exploding it in a flash of blue as it ignites Chi Nam’s form and races toward us.

Lukas picks me up and throws me, and then Valasca, into the portal, Valasca rapidly whisked off to the side as I’m pulled straight backward into the portal’s shimmering golden depths.

Lukas’s eyes meet mine as the black fire hits his back, his mouth forming one word that’s snuffed out by the roar of the fire.

Elloren.

A wave of shimmering gold cuts him from sight and swallows the sound as I scream his name.

CHAPTER THREE

CONFLAGRATION

ELLOREN GREY

Seventh Month

Dyoi Forest, Eastern Realm

I fall through the portal’s glimmering gold center headfirst and hit the ground hard as I’m thrust into a dense purple forest under stormy daylit skies.

Wildly disoriented, I push myself up, palms to the mossy ground, and whip my head around.

Behind me, the portal stands suspended in the air. Its golden haze is fog-like and insubstantial, the runes of the portal’s frame dissipating to transparency and wavering like water.

My heart slams against my chest, panic cresting as I lurch toward the portal even as it fades to a vaporous echo.

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