Page 60 of The Shadow Wand

I am marginally relieved to find that High Commander Lachlan Grey’s familial home is surrounded by more than a few Mage Guards, soldiers not only bracketing the doors but patrolling the grounds as well, Thierren now among them.

Will this, combined with a warded gate, be enough to keep me alive?

“Mage,” the Urisk woman standing before me says, pulling me out of my momentary pause.

“I’m sorry,” I hastily apologize. “Thank you.”

I sling my travel bag over my shoulder and cautiously step down the carriage’s slick fold-down steps, taut with anxiety but also ready to be done with close to two straight days of travel to Gardneria’s capital city.

The Urisk woman shelters me under the wax cloth as I finish disembarking, her mouth set in a tight line. Rain streams off the sides of the cloth in long rivulets, soaking the woman’s cloak.

Like the mist being kicked up by the rain, hostility radiates from her, and I wonder at it, even as sympathy for her sparks over what must be an impossible situation—being Urisk and indentured to High Commander Lachlan Grey.

Still, I’m both thrown and rattled by her demeanor as I keep up with her brisk stride toward the nearest sheltering archway, its roof formed by interwoven branches of Ironwood. I glance over my shoulder as the carriage pulls away.

A panoramic view of Valgard and the Malthorin Bay beyond is spread out behind me, just past the iron-barred fencing, the gauzy golden lights of Gardneria’s capital city evident even in the hazy mist. My gaze catches on a faint, glowing green line that hangs over the outer edge of the bay, the Fae Islands beyond it shrouded into invisibility by the mist.

What is that?

I have little time to wonder at the odd sight as the rain begins to sheet down in earnest, like countless pebbles thrown at the wax cloth, the weather in this part of Gardneria famously stormy this time of year. A driving wind picks up that whips my hair around, and we quicken our pace through the torrential rain toward the archway.

The immaculate gardens that surround the Greys’ mansion are being worked, even in this heavy rain, by cloaked, bent Urisk women, while knots of cloaked soldiers guard its wrought-iron entrance gate just beyond.

Remorse cuts through my worry for my own safety. What will happen to all those women when Gardneria’s mandatory eviction of all non-Mages from these lands begins at year’s end?

My gaze slides to the northeastern edge of the property and the dense line of forest just beyond. I notice there’s a much heavier military presence near this stretch of isolated wilds.

We step under the branchy archway, a stone walkway beneath my feet, its geometric blessing-star design cobbled in black and forest green. I notice that rain has darkened the hem of my skirt as the angry Urisk woman directs me toward a huge Ironwood door with an impatient flick of her hand.

She slows, opens the door, and ushers me into a tidy cloakroom. Then she quickly folds the wax cloth and sets it aside as I pull back my cloak’s hood, but she gives me no time at all to pause and hang up my damp covering.

“Mage Evelyn iswaiting,” she practically hisses with another curt wave to prod me forward.

I follow as she rushes me through a series of lantern-lit hallways hung with impressive oil paintings depicting lush Ironwood forests. Eventually, the woman comes to a halt before a set of ornate doors, their wood carved into a rich autumn hunting scene—Gardnerians with arrows nocked in bows and aimed at a herd of elk.

“Stay there,” she orders with a jab toward my feet, like I’m a dog in need of training. Then she opens one of the doors and slips inside, closes it behind her, and leaves me in the hall all alone.

I crane my ear and can make out muted conversation just beyond the thick wood. Soon, one of the doors partially opens and the Urisk woman steps back into the hallway.

“Mage Evelyn Grey will see you now.” She announces this with a slight sneer, as if I’m about to get what’s coming to me, then stands back and opens the door wide with a flourish, an obnoxious glint in her eyes.

I enter reluctantly and try to hide my wince when the door clicks shut behind me.

Lukas’s mother, Mage Evelyn Grey, stands at the far end of the room, her back to me.

She’s looking through a diamond-paned window that takes up almost an entire wall and is hung with sumptuous maroon curtains tied back with forest green tassels. She’s tall, finely dressed, and holds herself in the same regal manner as Aunt Vyvian.

Heart thudding, I rally my courage, set down my travel bag by a chair, and take a few tentative steps toward the center of the room as I quickly scan my surroundings.

A large black marble fireplace blazes to one side, overpowering the day’s damp chill. Richly cushioned chairs are grouped before it, an expansive bookshelf set into the adjacent wall. The soft glow of glass-encased torches on iron stands warms the dim gray light streaming in from the windows, and expensive-looking porcelain vases are placed artfully throughout the room. Everything is in the traditional Gardnerian colors—deep red for the blood of our people spilled by the Evil Ones, green for the subdued wilds, smatterings of Ironflower blue, and the ever-present black to symbolize our many years of oppression.

Thunder rumbles in the distance.

Mage Grey half turns, one hand resting gracefully on the windowsill as she gives me a slow once-over. She’s intimidatingly beautiful, fine as a painting, her black velvet tunic conservatively high in the collar, and both her tunic and long-skirt devoid of embellishment. Her green eyes bore into me, hard and cold as wintry glass. I can see now where Lukas gets his stunning looks, his fiercely commanding presence. The shock of white-silver running through Mage Grey’s ebony hair only intensifies her severe beauty.

I struggle to keep my confidence from wilting before her.

She continues to look me over slowly, like some unwanted insect she’s fighting the urge to crush, as I wait for her to say something. After a moment, she turns away, brings one hand to her waist, and peers back out the window toward her fine gardens and view of the ocean beyond.

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