Page 47 of The Shadow Wand

You fear never being seen for who you are,the velvet voice murmurs. And you fear not belonging.His expression darkens further, his face closer to hers now, something approaching sympathy touching the sharp lines of his face.You will never resolve both of these fears, Asrai. You cannot have both of these things. You stand alone.

Tierney draws back, suddenly pierced by a sorrow she can’t explain, an unsettling energy shuddering through her water power. “That’s enough,” she snaps, thrown by the vulnerability this stranger-Fae is stoking in her.

His black-lipped mouth falls open a fraction as if he’s unearthed something that surprises him. His brow creases, a surprising tinge of compassion in his eyes.You fear never truly being loved.

A defensive heat sparks in Tierney and she moves farther back from him. “Get out of me.”

I can’t.The tone of the words in her mind is almost mournful as the Death Fae remains stubbornly fixated on her.Reading fear is like breathing air to Deathkin.

“Then get away from me, Viger.”

The energy between them changes as Viger flicks out his claws and the darkness he’s sent out to languidly circle around them morphs into a tempest of black smoke, roiling and storming. “You came to me,” he snarls, revealing disturbingly sharp teeth as his eyes flash then turn solid black once more. “You invited me in and asked for your fears.”So face what’s inside you, Asrai,seethes in the back of Tierney’s mind.

Suddenly Tierney is accosted by every last one of her fears as every terrifying moment of her life and every fear for the future gather together and rise like a cyclone inside her.

Being wrenched away from her parents at three.

Playing with her water magic as a child and nearly being found out by the Gardnerians.

The day that Vogel took power.

Finding two of her beloved kelpies dead in an iron-spiked lake.

Reading her kelpies’ images of Fae refugees being impaled by iron weapons wielded by Gardnerian soldiers.

A Lasair Fae child with an iron spear thrust right through her head.

And then a vision of Vogel’s dragon army flying over the Vo Mountains, straight toward where they’re standing, everyone here powerless to stop the evil onslaught.

Her family and friends all ripped to shreds by soulless dragons.

Uncontrollable terror strafes through Tierney and pulls her under. Suffocating, debilitating, horrifying fear.

She lets out a strangled cry as she wrenches her gaze from the Death Fae and breaks his thrall. She turns back to face him and gives him a blazing look of anguished accusation. What appears to be deep remorse to the point of emotional pain flares in his eyes. But it’s all too much.

Tierney turns on her heels and flees.

That evening, Tierney seeks out the Wyvernguard’s river-level terrace once more, desperate to be close to the bobbing waters of the powerful Vo River, her emotions still running in a turbulent stream from her encounter with the Death Fae.

The cool breeze coming off the Vo ruffles her multihued-blue hair as she leans on the terrace’s stone railing, her mind a storm soothed only by the Vo wakening to her presence, waves leaping then gently scrolling toward her to lap at her feet. As if the river can sense her troubled state.

Tierney exhales, her shoulders loosening in response to the water’s caress.

Rune ships are streaming through the air and over the waters of the inky Vo, bright sapphire runes whirring at their sides. Beyond the stretch of river directly before her, the spiraling tiers of the Wyvernguard’s North Twin Island rise up, long, rune-lit walkways connecting the North and South Twin Islands like the rungs of an enormous ladder.

Tierney turns east and takes in Noilaan’s twinkling capital city of Voloi, the city rising tier after tier and built into the vertical wall of the Voloi Mountain Range, the breathtakingly high mountains that hug the eastern coast.

She pivots her head and peers west over the river at the hulking black wall of the Vo Mountains, which hug the Vo River’s western bank and wall off Noilaan from everything west of it. A fierce band of storms created by the Zhilon’ileWyverns hangs above this ridgeline as a barrier to invaders, roiling clouds frenetically spitting blue lightning.

Tierney knows the history of this Wyvern-made band of storms.

It was created during the Realm War to keep the Black Witch out.

She frowns as she grips the cool stone railing and glances from the Vo Mountain Range to the huge city of Voloi and back west again, concerned about the vulnerability of the city.

At the base of the Vo Mountains, the Noi have fabricated a runic border that spans the Vo River’s entire western bank, curving over the river’s northern and southern reaches to encircle the entire country of Noilaan. The rune border is a ribbon of blue from here, but up close, Tierney imagines it would top Valgard’s cathedral in height. Its runes send up a barely visible runic dome over the entirety of Noilaan, making trespass impossible and enabling rune ship flight as well as the rune magery that powers the entire city.

Tierney looks into the night sky, needing to squint and focus hard to catch the dome-shield’s slight blue shimmer and the occasional glimpse of one of the countless translucent runes that mark its gigantic surface.

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