Page 42 of The Shadow Wand

Fyordin holds out his hand and Tierney swallows, nerves leaping, as she reaches to grasp hold of it, suppressing a gasp as the edges of their storming power brush up against each other.

Fyordin’s blue lips lift farther, his eyes sparking. “No,” he states with some censure in the Asrai language. “Not like aVor’ish’in.Like an Asrai.” He slides his hand up past Tierney’s grip, his fingers grasping hold of her forearm.

Water streams from Fyordin’s forearm to twirl around Tierney’s arm in glistening ribbons, drenching her tunic’s cloth as it sends a pulsing thrill straight through her arm. “Join your water to mine, Asrai,” Fyordin invites as Tierney’s heartbeat quickens. “This is how Asrai’il greet one another.”

Unexpectedly moved by this offer to throw off Gardnerian ways for those of the Asrai, Tierney pulls in a deep breath and summons a stream of water to flow from her skin, around their joined arms, and through Fyordin’s water, the two streams colliding then coalescing and strengthening with a power that sends an intoxicating rush straight through Tierney. For a moment, she doesn’t want to let go of Fyordin’s arm as she looks up at him, tears glazing her eyes.

Asrai’il. My people.

A shimmer of warmth ripples through Tierney as Fyordin’s mouth lifts into a broader smile, his grip on her arm tightening. “Welcome home,Asrai’il.”

Tears escape her attempt to blink back her fierce swell of emotion as Fyordin holds on and a broader rush of water swirls around Tierney, coming not just from Fyordin, but from all the Fae converging around her.

“You’re not trapped in Gardneria anymore,” a young Asrai woman fiercely declares, her dark blue hair woven into spiraling braids and decorated with row upon row of small pale shells.

Tierney’s heart opens as something that she’s never felt in her entire life washes over her like a beloved tide.

Belonging.

“I am My’raid,” the pale-shell-decorated woman says warmly as Fyordin releases Tierney, his power drawing back along with that of all the other Asrai.

“I’m Tierney Calix,” Tierney says to the young woman, caught up in the communal rush of feeling. Tierney extends her arm, and the young woman grasps hold of it then sends a whoosh of warm mist around Tierney’s arm that Tierney subsumes with her own rushing stream of power, not able to hold back her magic’s sheer strength.

The woman looks at the water coursing around their arms with evident surprise. “You are powerful,Asrai’il,” she says. “And you likely do not know the full extent of your power. Most of us did not when we first came to the East.” She flashes a beaming smile. “But now you are here and freed. And you will build a new Sidhe land with us and all the Faekin.”

Tierney looks to half-naked, glorious Fyordin and lets herself meet his mesmerizing gaze and even more mesmerizing smile. Fyordin’s gaze locks onto hers with an intense interest that sends a ripple of warmth coursing through her. Never has a young man looked at her in quite this way. It makes Tierney feel like a heated spring, and she fleetingly wonders, as her body flushes, what it would be like to be kissed by another Asrai.

“You need to reclaim your Asrai name,” Fyordin encourages, his smile dimming as his expression grows serious, “and cast off this false Gardnerian name.”

Tierney hesitates. “I was never able to safely use my Asrai name, so I’m not used to it...”

“But now you can use it,” My’raid points out meaningfully, a sheen of emotion flashing in her lake-blue eyes. “The Crows hold no power here.”

Tierney’s newfound sense of belonging is jostled as she internally winces at the slur.

Crows.

She heard it murmured countless times on the way here, directed at Trystan as the Vu Trin talked among themselves. And she heard it tossed out in reference to her Gardnerian family and her fifteen-year-old Asrai brother, whose Gardnerian glamour is refusing to give way. The casual use ofCrowincreasingly filled her with concern as her Gardnerian mother and father and her Asrai brother escaped East with her, her adoptive family now thrust into their new role—Gardnerian refugees settling into the nearby capital city of the Noi lands, Voloi.

Tierney’s unease over hearing the slur seeps further in as she remembers what she and Asra’leen overheard during breakfast in the huge Wyvernguard dining room—that slurs were marked all over Trystan Gardner’s room last night. That three primordial Death Fae were the only Vu Trin apprentices willing to welcome Trystan.

“Are you ready to fight with us, Asrai’il?” Fyordin asks with a hint of challenge, breaking into her unease as a subtle glimmer of his water power swooshes around her, a rakish glint in his dazzling deep-blue gaze.

Tierney straightens, trying to not let her thoughts scramble in response to the sight of his handsome face and his strapping, half-naked form.

“I am,” Tierney replies, sending out her own whoosh of invisible water power toward Fyordin.

Fyordin gives her an intent look that Tierney feels straight down her spine.

“Your training in your Asrai for’din, your Fae power, will be fast and intense,” he says, growing more serious. “We’re likely to be deployed west. And soon. The Vu Trin are mobilizing for war with the Roaches.”

Tierney gives a sharp, inward draw back.

Roaches.

Unease twists in Tierney as a storm cloud forms over her head that she’s unable to tamp down. “I’m ready to fight Vogel and his forces,” she says, holding Fyordin’s gaze. “But you should know that there are Gardnerians who are with us in that fight.”

Tierney can feel it, the energy around her instantly changing, becoming unsettled and not quite the lovely embrace it was just a moment ago.

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