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.
“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.
There are Keltic and Urisk soldiers standing and talking in small groups, the barn just beyond them. Torches on iron stands have been thrust into the dirt. They ring the large, circular clearing between farm buildings, the flames casting everything in a sinister, orange glow.
This flat land extends to the steep bluff that lines the entire rear boundary of the farm, offering a clear view of the full expanse of Crykes Field below. Countless campfires are scattered across the field, flickering between the rows of Keltic military tents and the georune-marked shelters of the Urisk soldiers.
My cottage and those of my neighbors are still ablaze in the far distance, just past the river, and the smell of charred wood hangs heavy in the air. Far to the north, I can just make out the dark shapes of dragons soaring across the night sky, still winging their way toward Gardneria.
“Move,” Brandon orders, giving me a shove from behind.
A few Keltic soldiers turn to give me the once-over, their red uniforms the color of blood in the torchlight, their faces filling with dark interest at the sight of me.
I push waves of my fire magic against the fear that threatens to undo me, the surge of warmth bolstering my courage. As I study the scattered Urisk soldiers—whose magical talents make them far more intimidating than the Kelts—I find myself pulling up even more magic to steady my nerves. They’re lethally streamlined in appearance, their scythes glimmering with inlaid gemstones and strapped to their backs. One geosoldier rides by on a snarling hydreena, the beast’s ugly, tusked head twisting from side to side against its tight reins.
There’s a military sameness to most of the blue-hued Urisk soldiers, but one soldier stands boldly out. He’s the most heavily rune-marked soldier here, and the