The Black Witch. Laurie Forest

sympathy. “I know how much you have suffered, Kam.”

      The sorceress’s face flinches. “No. You do not.”

      The words hang in the air for one long minute as the women regard each other.

      The Gardnerian places a comforting hand on the sorceress’s arm, but the sorceress remains military stiff, her hands clenched tight on her swords as if ready to attack the very memory of atrocities endured. After a moment, the Gardnerian lets her hand drop and turns back to the window. Thunder rumbles again to the west.

      “Now is not the time to strike her down, Kam,” the Gardnerian states. “The Wand has chosen her. We must wait a bit to find out why—to see what this girl is made of. I do not plan on making her life here easy. Curiously, I have her aunt’s cooperation in this.”

      The sorceress cocks a questioning eyebrow.

      “Vyvian Damon has her own motivation for putting some pressure on the girl,” the Gardnerian explains. “A wandfasting conflict. She wants the girl to fast to Lukas Grey.”

      “Rising star of the Gardnerian military forces. How fitting.”

      The Gardnerian chooses to ignore the comment.

      “My assassins are restless,” the sorceress cautions darkly. “I cannot promise you that the girl will be safe if they view you as complacent, not after what this girl’s grandmother did to our people, and what she would have succeeded in doing had the Icaral not cut her down. And this girl—” she gestures in the direction of the carriage with a sharp jerk of her chin “—if she is indeed The One, she is prophesied to be even greater in power than Carnissa, perhaps the most powerful Mage that has ever existed.”