Wandfasted. Laurie Forest

asks me, his voice gone suddenly gentle.

      Vale whips his head toward us to gape at Fain, his face incredulous. “Have you lost your mind?”

      “Look at me, sweetling,” Fain says, leaning to the side and locking his eyes on to mine. “I have some lovely chocolate. With cardamom and Ishkart cinnamon. I will make it for you and for your brother. We will sit under the stars and sip it. I promise you. Can you think on that and only that?”

      I know how badly this is going to hurt, but I find myself nodding in assent. Fain smiles faintly, then grips my hand like a vise and repeats the spell.

      There’s a rumbling whoosh deep in my core. Like a blockage about to be released.

      The breathless moment just before an avalanche.

      A flood of fire rips through me, and I scream, my body convulsing. A stream of white-hot flame explodes through the wand and ignites several more trees, destroying them. I cry out again as a thousand red-hot swords stab into me, hot knives slashing at my legs.

      And then it dissipates, the heat rapidly fleeing. Cool water comes in on its heels. Then colder water. Winter cold. I start to shiver.

      “I can move my other arm,” I marvel, pressing it tight against the vines, then shaking out my legs as Fain guides me up, the vines still tight around my torso. “And my legs. I can feel my legs.” I’m dazed by the throbbing echo of pain and the rising cold, hollowing me out. “But I’m getting so cold.”

      Fain shoots Vale a worried look.

      “Go,” Vale tells him with a glance toward the mountains. “They’ll need help reinforcing the shield.”

      “Don’t touch her skin,” Fain warns Vale as he gets up. “And keep her bound. If she reaches your fire, her affinity lines will devour it and she’ll burn out from overexposure. It could kill her.”

      “Thank you, Fain,” Vale snipes. “For stating the patently obvious.”

      And then Vale lifts me clear off the ground and starts around the left side of the barn at a fast clip, Fain striding off in the opposite direction.

       Chapter 8: Vale Gardner

      Vale carries me into the shadow of the woods that bracket the fiery barn. I struggle against his firm grip, desperate to escape the Mage who hurt—possibly killed—my best friend.

      “Jules saved me,” I tell him, my voice choked with grief. “That Kelt you dragged away—”

      “I know he tried to help you,” Vale cuts me off sharply as he runs through the trees. His voice lowers to a whisper. “I didn’t kill him. So be quiet. I’m trying to save your life.”

      Sweet Ancient One, Jules is alive!

      We burst from the woods at the edge of the rocky embankment, and Vale’s boot heels skid as he tries to slow his pace. Our descent down the sharp slope to Crykes Field becomes more of a slide than a run. Vale’s feet kick up dust and send a waterfall of dry gravel toward the ground below.

      When we reach the bottom, he pulls me backward and down toward the ground with him. His arms are tight around me, holding me close against his chest as he leans into the slope of the bluff. Then Vale throws out his wand, murmurs a spell and creates a tight, translucent shield over us. The wavering shield is webbed with turbulent blue lines of lightning that send sparking static buzzing through my head.

      His fire leaps inside him, toward me. It suffuses my back with warmth, the fabric of his clothing and the cloak wrapped around me a barrier keeping his fire at bay. Keeping it from my skin.

      My arms instinctively pull at the vines restraining me, yearning to touch him, to absorb the fire in his shield. I’m desperate to melt the block of ice that’s slowly forming in my core. What began as a mere pebble after Fain’s purge has become a large, freezing stone. I know Fain was trying to help me, but my core of fire is all but extinguished, my affinity crushed beneath his torrent of water.

      Heart thumping, shivering from cold, I glance back up the embankment, toward the burning barn, and see the irregular exit hacked through its rear.

      Escape.

      My gaze swerves down to my far left, down the long ditch that turns like a serpent to flow across the back of Crykes Field. There’s a long, glowing shield set snug against the long bluff like a cocoon. It’s surrounded by Kelt and Urisk soldiers shooting a series of flaming arrows and glowing blue streams of geo-fire at it. Two dragons are snarling and clawing at the shield, and I can just make out the mass of black-clad Gardnerians huddled together beneath it.

      A cacophony of shrieks sound from above, and I crane my neck, the back of my head sliding against Vale’s chest. A huge horde of dragons soars above us, circling over Crykes Field like a flock of death. Neat rows of mounted soldiers are assembling throughout the field for the march toward Gardneria. Torch-bearing sentries flank the rigid formations, and sapphire geo-shields appear above the company of soldiers, cast by Urisk geomancers astride hydreenas.

      A flaming arrow smacks into the side of Vale’s shield and is instantly incinerated in a crackling, spitting ball of blue lightning.

      “Ruus’fayn,” Vale curses in Alfsigr, one arm wrapped around my bound body, pulling me tight against the side of his chest. With the other arm he points his wand straight out, a stream of glowing blue feeding the shield.

      “We’re outnumbered,” I tell him, my teeth chattering dully. My fingers and toes are starting to feel numb again. I look toward the distant Mage-shield, knowing that my brother and grandfather are likely inside it—but how long will it hold up under such a fierce attack? “They’ll kill us all.”

      “Oh, you think so, do you?” Vale states drily.

      I huff out a small sound of despair, tears stinging my dust-caked eyes.

      Another arrow smashes into our shield, and I flinch back.

      “How long can you maintain this shield?” I challenge him, my voice rough with tears.

      “About one hour,” he replies, each word succinct and calm.

      Anger rises in me. How can he be so unconcerned?

      Three explosions of orange illuminate the tops of the mountains. The mammoth, circular puffs of light cast a sputtering amber glow over the entire field.

      “What’s coming?” I demand roughly. “What can possibly save us from them?” I jerk my chin hard toward the Kelt-Urisk army.

      “Their worst nightmare,” Vale says. He spits out a short, jaded laugh. “A force much stronger than their dragons and their demons and their flimsy arrows.”

      “More Mages?” I croak out, disbelieving. We already have at least three high-level Mages trying to help our people, and yet here we are, cowering in a ditch with decaying shields.

      Vale spits out an incredulous laugh. “No. Not more of us. We’re child’s play compared to her.”

      Her?

      He’s mad. He must be mad. There’s never been a powerful female Mage.

      Despairing, I glare at him. “What do you mean, ‘her’?”

      He cocks an eyebrow and sets his fierce eyes on me. His voice, when he speaks, is dangerously calm.

      “You’re about to meet my mother.”

       Chapter 9: The Black Witch

      Alarm horns trumpet, echoing over the valley. Another round of orange explosions erupts just past the mountains, then fades to nothing.

      The mountains fall eerily quiet, the sound of the alarm horns fading.

      I