Page 82 of The Shadow Wand

Gasps hiss throughout the hall, and for a moment, I don’t fully comprehend Vogel’s words.

“The Winged Demon was located in Noi lands,” Vogel continues. “Glamoured as a Kelt and known by the name Yvan Guriel.”

The words strike like hammer blows straight to my heart. All the blood rushes from my head.

No. No.

“The heathen Noi were harboring the Great Demon on their Oonlan military base,” Vogel continues, his tone sharpening to a blade’s edge, “honing his power, intent on unleashing this weapon of fiery destruction upon the Holy Magedom.”

Vogel pauses as I struggle to breathe, struggle to think.

“The Demon is the son of Valentin Guryev,” Vogel says, slow and seething. “Not Yvan Guriel at all, but Yvan Guryev. Son of the Demon who killed Carnissa Gardner, our Great Black Witch.”

My stomach lurches and vertigo rushes over me as vengeful rage breaks out across the room. I can feel Lukas’s flash of fiery surprise from clear across the hall as every beat of my heart sounds out one word.

Yvan. Yvan. Yvan.

“By the grace of the Holy Ancient One,” Vogel cries over the restless crowd, “the Icaral Demon has been struck down. Yvan Guryev, cursed son of Valentin Guryev, isdead.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

IRONFLOWERS

ELLOREN GARDNER

Sixth Month

Valgard, Gardneria

A violent roar of triumph breaks through the crowd like a wave, everyone yelling and crying out as fists are thrown into the air in support of Yvan’s death.

Shock rips through me as my knees go weak and I take a faltering step backward, my legs almost buckling beneath me. I throw my hand back and grab hold of the Ironwood trunk behind me, my wand hand meeting wood.

The invisible magic in my lines detonates.

Power rushes through me in a savage inferno, heat flooding my lines as a murderous rage overtakes me that’s fueled by ferocity and grief and my destroyed heart. The urge to draw up my fire power and level the entire city of Valgard takes hold with incredible force, and I know that if I stay a second more, Iwillburn this city to ash.

I turn on my heels and flee.

I run and run, bursting through the Council Hall’s entrance, past shocked-looking soldiers and down the sweeping staircase. Clear past the Council Hall and into a grove of Ironwood trees, not caring when rough roots scrape my feet.

I run until I’m past the back edge of the grove, past all the wood, racing toward the ocean until there’s cold bluff stone beneath my feet, a rocky cliff before me and the ocean below, the ledge lit sapphire by the glow of the grove’s Ironflower blooms.

I pause, my breath suspended as my eyes latch on to the glowing green line that crosses the bay in the distance.

Bile rises in my throat.

My legs buckle and I drop to my knees against the ledge’s raised stone, my whole body racked with ferocious sobs as the stiff ocean breeze strafes over me and black waves crash violently against the rocks below.

I cry until I can barely breathe. Until my eyes are almost swollen shut. Until pain clenches my chest and throat and eyes.

Yvan.

My love. My only love.

Gone.

Murdered.

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