Laurie Forest - Wandfasted

“They’re dead, aren’t they?” I moan into his chest, rocking my head side to side in grief.

“I don’t know,” he says, clutching me tight.

“My mother’s gone. My father. Not Grandfather and Wren, too!” His hand comes up to cradle my hair. “Oh, Jules,” I sob, “Grandfather should have let me have the wand! He should have let us leave sooner!”

“I know. I know it, Tessla.”

“I could have saved them!” I let out a low, agonized wail as he holds me.

Choking on tears, I pull away from Jules and stagger up to peer north.

The horde of dragons is a dark splotch moving relentlessly over the Caledonian Mountains toward central Gardneria. The Kelts have turned the entirety of broad Crykes Field into a military staging area. Lines of dark tents and geometric rune-marked structures have been erected and hundreds of torches are lit. Some of the dragons are being flown down onto the field.

Horrified, I turn south and spot a large mass of uniformed Keltic soldiers wearing russet military tunics over black pants. They’re riding in tight formation into Doveshire via the Southern Wayroad. Urisk soldiers flank them—powerful geomancers with pointed ears and the blue hair and sky-blue skin of their military class, their cobalt-blue armor marked with glowing georunes. Some of the Urisk are riding hydreenas, the terrible, boar-shaped beasts hunched and bristling, tusks gleaming in the dying light. Some are riding in their rune-powered horseless carriages with glowing runes for wheels.

The Western Wayroad is clogged with Keltic families fleeing toward the coast, away from the fighting, their carts piled high with people and possessions and festooned with red flags bearing black Xs.

“They’ve an Icaral demon!” I gasp as a black-winged soldier rides into view astride a hydreena, his eyes pinpoints of fire. He looks much like the blue Urisk soldiers, save for his glowing eyes and the feathered black wings that fan menacingly out from his back, not entirely unlike the dragons above us.

An Evil One.

I slump down, dizzy, my back to a broad rock as I teeter sideways, weeping.

Jules crouches down and takes my arm. “Come away with me.” There’s steel in his voice. “I’ll find Keltic clothes for you. We’ll escape.”

I thrust my arm out at him, my skin glimmering faintly emerald in the gathering darkness. “It’s no use, Jules. How could we hide this?”

His jaw hardens. “I’ll smuggle you into Verpacia.”

I’m shaking my head as the tears stream down my face. “They’ll catch us. I’m sure they’ve closed the border.”

“I go to the University,” he insists. “I know people. People who could help us.”

“But my family,” I keen in despair, wracked by sobs.

“I’ll be your family.”

He says this with such rock-hard conviction, the tears catch in my throat. I look to him, stunned.

“I’ll marry you,” he insists. “Somehow, we’ll get to Verpacia, and I’ll marry you. We’ll get a cottage there. Somewhere remote. I’ll find work at the University and I’ll hide you.”

“Gardnerians don’t marry,” I remind him, my voice choked with grief for my family, my people. “We wandfast. Then we seal the bond.” Anguish rises in me like a terrible wave. “Just leave me, Jules. I’m going to get you killed. You can’t help me.”

“I can.”

I take a deep, shuddering breath. Kind, foolish Jules. I touch his face. His jutting cheekbone. His infinitely intelligent eyes.

“You can’t marry me, Jules,” I tell him, my mouth trembling. “I’m not a Kelt.”

His expression turns fierce. “I don’t care! When have I ever cared?”

“I will always be Gardnerian.”

“Then be Gardnerian,” he stubbornly returns. “We’ll make a life in Verpacia. And when things calm down, we can wandfast if it’s possible. I don’t care. I’d bind myself to you.”

I’ve known for some time that Jules fancies me. It’s been building in him over time. I’ve seen it in the heat lighting his gaze when he looks at me. In the new tension between us. But he’s always held back, polite and unsure of my feelings. To hear him speak so boldly stuns me into silence.

“We’ll go up through the mountains,” he says. “You can stay here while I get a horse and supplies.”

“What if they’re still alive?” My voice is small and weak, clinging to senseless hope. My crippled, doddering grandfather and my sickly eight-year-old brother. What are the chances they’ve escaped all this?

He gives me a hard look. We both know the likely truth.

“What would they want you to do?” Jules asks, his jaw set tight.

A bitter laugh cuts through my tears. “Grandfather? He’d want me to push you clear off that cliff.” I start to weep anew at the thought of my gentle, staunchly religious grandfather and his overwhelming hatred of Kelts. Grandfather would be horrified at the bizarre prospect of Keltic Jules trying to wandfast to his granddaughter, for the same reasons that he foolishly, blindly heeded our religion’s strictures that barred women from wielding wands without first securing the Mage Council’s approval.

“What would Wren want, then?” Jules asks, softer this time.

I think of my brother’s wide, ready smile. Roughly, I wipe the tears from my eyes, steeling myself. “He’d want me to go with you.”

“Will you do it?” Jules asks, his hand coming up to caress my face. “Will you come away with me?”

I nod and let him pull me into a warm embrace.

A twig snaps to my left.

“Well, isn’t this touching.”

Jules’s whole body stiffens, and I blanch at the sound of the familiar voice.

Brandon stands just a few feet away, smiling triumphantly as three Keltic soldiers surround us and unsheathe their swords.

Chapter 3: Prisoner

“Where’s my brother? And my grandfather?” My voice is coarse and low with dread as I stumble along the wooded path toward Crykes Field. I’m stealthily summoning up bits of magic from the ground as I’m herded along, storing the power inside me, though it hurts to gather so much without using it.

All I need is a wand.

Brandon laughs. “Quit your nattering, witch.” He gives me a rough shove, which almost sends me hurtling to the ground. I choke back my outrage as I regain my balance.

Narrowing my eyes, I pull up another thread of magic and wind it around the others deep inside me. Gardnerian magic runs along affinity lines—fire, water, air, earth and light. I have mostly fire.

Lots of it.

Jules is being mercilessly driven ahead of me. One of the soldiers, a tall, bearded man, gives my friend’s head a hard smack every now and then, laughing when Jules nearly falls sideways. Night has taken hold, the stars shining pinpricks in the sky, shadows engulfing the woods around us.

I flinch as yet another dragon flies overhead, my hidden magic sending a knifelike jab to my ribs.

So many dragons. A sickening terror tries to pull me under, but I push the magic’s simmering power at it, keeping the fear at bay.

We’re close to Crykes Field, and I can hear the raucous laughter of soldiers up ahead. My nerves fray as the shrieks of countless dragons echo above and across the ground in the distance. A staccato burst of orders is shouted nearby, and I can make out rough, low voices speaking the sharp language of the Urisk.

Urisk geomancers are powerful magicians from the southern lands, able to harness the latent magic of gemstones and crystals. And their military has recently formed an alliance with the Keltic forces.

Against my people.

The woods open up, and Jules is pushed into a clearing. I hesitate, heart thudding, my steps skidding to a halt.

A mammoth barn looms before me. In the darkness of the forest, I hadn’t realized that we were approaching Mage Gullin’s sprawling farm. That the enemy soldiers had decided to place part of their encampment here.