Page 29 of The Shadow Wand

Panic rears. I cast a beseeching look at Kam Vin, Chi Nam, and Chim Diec. “But...where willyougo?”

Kam Vin glances back at me with an expression of somber resignation. “We will travel to Niem and beg Vang Troi to spare your life.”

Vang Troi—I remember the image of their powerful military commander, dismounting from a sapphire dragon on the North Tower’s field, a silver, horned headpiece circling her brow.

“Do you think she’ll listen?” I ask.

Kam Vin surveys the wreckage surrounding us, flames dotting the landscape far into the distance as the dark of night descends. She turns back to me, eyes grave, and doesn’t answer as I clutch the rune stone.

“Find Lukas Grey,” Chi Nam says to me. “Use your position as his fastmate to secure your protection. And, if you can, use it to find the weapon the Gardnerians used to kill the Lupines. Then give me this weapon when we come for you. If you’re able to find this weapon for us, perhaps we can convince Vang Troi to spare your life. And ours.”

CHAPTER TWO

MAGICAL ADDICTION

ELLOREN GARDNER

SixthMonth

Verpacian Province of Gardneria

I watch Ni Vin through the flickering campfire light as I lie on my bedroll in the small forest clearing. The dark of night envelops us.

Ni Vin is sitting on a fallen tree in her black military garb, sharpening the cutting edge of her curved rune sword on a small whetstone, the blade glinting in the dancing firelight, the runes glowing Noi blue.

I’ve grown uneasily used to traveling with Ni Vin as we make our way west, first through the Phi Na desert portal to the Caledonian wilderness, then through a secret passage under the Northern Spine.

Headed for the newly annexed Keltish Province of Gardneria.

By now I know that, for Ni Vin, honing her weapons is her nervous tic. She sits, night after night, sharpening her rune sword and runic blades and her silver stars, even though all of these weapons are already razor-sharp.

I understand this compulsion of hers, because I’m equally drawn to wood, although I’m now actively struggling to fight my attraction to it lest I lose all control and give in to the heightened urge to send magic through it. I avoid all contact with the wrathful trees and their fallen branches as we travel through the deep wilderness of what’s now the Verpacian Province of Gardneria. The forest’s atmosphere of revulsion and fear zings along my affinity lines in sharp pinches.

As if the trees are quietly sizing up the enormity of my magic.

My eyes flick around as I take in the fallen branches and twigs strewn across the forest floor, some so straight and weathered that they could already pass for wands. My wand hand involuntarily clenches as the power in my lines strains toward each piece of wood I set my sights on.

I increasingly itch to touch dead wood, to feed what is increasingly feeling like some overpowering addiction that I have no control over, my yearning for wood seeming more and more like Ariel’s yearning for the drug nilantyr.

To fight the urge, I clench my wand hand so tight that my nails dig into my palm, even though the longing grows stronger through my resistance. After using that wand, I finally know this compulsion of mine for what it truly is.

My access to unspeakable power that I yearn to release.

I’ve grown especially afraid to touch the Wand of Myth, which is rolled up in a coarse cloth and stuffed into the side of my left boot. I can sense its presence, sense the starlight tree reaching for me in the back of my mind, but I fight against the pull, scared of it.

Scared of all wands.

Scared of myself.

I lie there on my thin bedroll, thinking on these things, as I listen to the high-pitched scrape of Ni Vin’s knife on stone, the blade catching the firelight and flashing in unspoken warning.

We’ve both been gravely silent for most of the journey, my power like a menacing third companion that we can’t shake. Every so often her narrowed eyes flicker in my direction, and I wonder if she’s imagining dragging the sharp edge of her knife across my throat.

She’s known the true nature of this power of mine for some time. It’s an enemy as familiar to her as her own melted hand and ear. And now I know it for what it is, as well. It bears no resemblance to the romanticized magic from the tales of my grandmother’s battle adventures. It’s the fire that killed most of Ni Vin’s family, that terrorized and destroyed entire villages filled with her people. I remember how she once said that she was “cursed to live.”

As she continues to scrape the blade, I realize my life balances on the razor’s edge of her weapons. I should be frightened by the grim indecision in her eyes, but my resonating shock from having learned the destruction I’m capable of overrides all other concerns.

The next morning, traveling next to Ni Vin on horseback with barely a word spoken between us, I eat only to stay strong, barely tasting the square cakes of oily grain mixed with long shreds of dried fruit that have become our staple. I drink to stay alive, although the water is sour on my tongue, and all the time I wonder what evil thing I’m feeding.

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