Chapter Twelve

Vu Trin Hunt

Vang Troi, high commander of the Vu Trin Forces

Wyvernguard, North Island command tower

Sixteen days after Xishlon

“The Black Witch’s allies have all fled,”

the young Vu Trin soldier Heelyn stonily reports. “And the Resistance to Gardnerian Rule in the West has been smashed to pieces.”

High Commander Vang Troi bites back a groan of frustration over Heelyn’s unwelcome news as she stares the woman down from where they stand amidst a gathering of Vu Trin and potential allies in the Wyvernguard’s circular command tower. A ring of large, arching windows surrounds them, offering a panoramic view of the rune-shielded Vo River, the devastated city of Voloi, and the gray skies above.

As her mind processes this information, Vang Troi coolly takes in Heelyn’s straight-backed form, the young sorceress’s weapons and uniform a mirror of Vang Troi’s own, save for the metal high-commander headpiece gracing Vang Troi’s brow, two curving, steel dragon horns rising from it.

Like the other Vu Trin in the room, both Vang Troi and Heelyn are garbed in a black military tunic and pants with a line of silver runic star weapons affixed diagonally across their chests, curved runic swords at their sides, the weapons’ Noi runes glowing bright sapphire with a touch of emerald coursing over them from their anchoring Shadow-resistant Varg runes.

The Wyvernguard’s commander, Ung Li, and three of the Vu Trin’s surviving legion commanders wait silently for Vang Troi’s response to Heelyn’s report. Along with Queen Freyja Zyrr, the newly named and shockingly young monarch of the Amaz, and Clive Soren, head of the Keltish forces and former Western Realm Resistance leader.

Vang Troi notes that Queen Freyja is standing clear across the room from Clive. Two of Queen Freyja’s stony-faced Queens Guard soldiers, Teel and Sorcha, bracket her, both of them glaring at Clive, looking hells-bent on wielding the huge runic axes strapped across their muscular backs against the sole man in the room.

Vo preserve us, Vang Troi inwardly grinds out, clear she’s navigating the equivalent of a runic minefield trying to bring these varied groups together.

The East is devolving into chaos, with Southern Noilaan and the entirety of the Vu Trin navy embroiled in a war with the Selkies and other Ocean Peoples that her army can’t get to because the entire area was runically domed off by two shields they can’t break through, one cast by the Black Witch’s ally Gareth Keeler, the other a dense Shadow net cast by Vogel over Gareth Keeler’s shielding that blocked out their view into Southern Noilaan.

When Vang Troi ordered the Vu Trin’s Asrai Water Fae Division south to attempt to break through the dual shielding and to fight against the Shadow sea weapon positioned to its south, she was shocked to learn that Fyordin Lir, one of the Vu Trin’s most powerful Water Fae military advisers, had disappeared, all attempts at magically tracking him proving futile.

Powerful magic is clearly at play in his disappearance, and in the disappearance of all three Vu Trin Death Fae, including the spider-shifter Sylla Vuul, whose Deathkin webbing saved the Wyvernguard’s North Tower.

Vang Troi’s hands tighten on the hilts of the curved runic swords sheathed at her sides, her gaze flickering out of the tower’s ring of windows toward the Shadow-smoking rubble of the Wyvernguard’s leveled South Island. A gray dawn is breaking over the decimated Vo Mountain Range, their runic border wall being slowly rebuilt, Noilaan’s shielding gone. The beautiful purple hue of Voloi’s forests has been stripped away, only the moody blue coloration of the Asrai and Deathkin warded Vo River remaining. The cropland surrounding Voloi is now tinted as gray as the skies above, the whole world seeming polluted by Vogel’s Shadow filth, the East’s food supply in serious danger.

“Both the Lupine alphas are gone?”

Vang Troi inquires, setting her penetrating gaze back on Heelyn, tension rife in the tower chamber’s air.

Heelyn gives a grim nod. “Trystan Gardner is gone, as well. Along with Sagellyn Za’Nor, Ra’Ven Za’Nor and others . . . every ally of the Black Witch has disappeared and been rendered untraceable by runic magery.”

Vang Troi pivots her attention to Queen Freyja. “And your Dryad, Alder Xanthos?”

Freyja returns her hard look. “Gone and untraceable,”

she replies. “Along with a flock of giant Issani Saffron Eagles.”

Vang Troi inwardly curses.

Oh, how we underestimated you, Elloren Gardner Grey. A shard of pain lances through Vang Troi’s war-hardened heart over the brutal murder of so many Noi’khin and the destruction of the tiered city of Voloi, the dangerous Shadow pollution seeping into a wide swath of Noilaan’s beautiful lands.

Never again will she so egregiously underestimate Vogel and the Black Witch.

A battle-ready simmer fills Vang Troi’s center, her aura of runic sorcery sapphire bright, grounding her as she turns back to Heelyn. “Any word on the Icaral of Prophecy, Yvan Guryev?”

Heelyn nods in affirmation. “His fire is being tracked as we speak.”

The young sorceress glances toward the tower’s ebony, dragon-embossed door.

“Show them in,”

Vang Troi directs.

Heelyn strides to the door, pulls it open, and steps back in silent invitation.

A woman of about Vang Troi’s age sweeps into the room like a firestorm. Her green eyes are shot through with incandescently lethal golden flame, her long hair a blazing Lasair Fae red. She bears a striking resemblance to the Icaral of Prophecy, her angular features as stunning as they are formidable.

Yvan Guryev’s part Fire Fae mother, Soleiya Guryev.

Every Vu Trin in the room, including Vang Troi, brings their fist to their chest in heartfelt military salute, Soleiya a highly revered figure in the East. Everyone in the country is cognizant of Soleiya’s decades-long Resistance work and the sacrifices she made during the last Realm War, her Icaral husband, Valentin, cut down by the last Black Witch as he struck Carnissa Gardner down in turn.

Saving the East.

Six other crimson-haired, point-eared Lasair Fae stride into the room behind Soleiya, all of their eyes burning the same furious gold. Vang Troi can practically feel the scorching fire from across the room as she meets the gaze of one of them, an arrestingly attractive young Lasair woman.

Vang Troi places her immediately. Iris Morgaine.

Iris has been a major thorn in Vang Troi’s side. Granted refuge in the East, she arrived only to rapidly fall in with a renegade contingent of Fire Fae set on annexing a section of Noilaan’s northeastern territory for Lasair rule, successfully laying claim to a section of it. They’re stunningly powerful, these Lasair, able to stave off every Vu Trin attempt to take them into custody.

“We welcome your alliance, Lasair’kin,”

Vang Troi carefully greets these most volatile of Fae’kin before meeting the fiery gaze of Soleiya Guryev. “I’ve been informed you are tracking your son, Yvan, through a link to his fire.”

“I am,”

Soleiya affirms, her tone full of emotion. “My son is alive. The Crow Witch has abducted him.”

Vengeful tears glaze her eyes. “I can sense where he is through our matriarchal Lasair fire link.”

She levels her index finger toward the northeast, her gaze spitting a furious light. “After the Black Witch attempted to rip the wings from my son’s body, she managed to get hold of him and pull him through a portal containing every strand of elemental power. I could sense the portal’s magic swirling around his fire. He was caught in the portal’s lag for days, but he’s arrived in the Northern Forest.”

Iris Morgaine steps forward, her eyes burning almost as bright as Soleiya’s. “We’re ready to rescue Yvan and slay the Black Witch,”

she snarls. “Mark us with Varg iron-protection runes. Grant us portal passage and dragon flight. And we’ll take the witch down.”

“I should have killed her long ago,”

Soleiya rages as a tear streaks down her cheek, her body trembling with a mother’s undistilled fury. “I met her months ago in Keltania. She’d enthralled my son by then. I knew it, even as he was ignorant of it. I knew her for the fiend she was.”

Her gaze sweeps condemningly over the Vu Trin soldiers in the room. “I never wanted my son to be a weapon in this war. But now that Yvan has been thrust into it, be very clear. I will war to save him.”

Soleiya thrusts up her palm, and a sphere of fire explodes to life and hovers over it, violently licking the air, the temperature in the tower room growing instantly, oppressively hot.

Battle-fire hot.

Iris Morgaine’s mouth twists with rage. “The Black Witch helped a number of us get East, but I always held her suspect. And now we know what her true intention was all along—to gather us all here so that her Mage army could strike from the Vo Mountain Range and kill us all.”

“So now we must strike her down,”

Vang Troi rejoins, scanning everyone assembled. “Along with everyone foolish enough to remain allied with her. But to achieve this, we must unite.”

Commander Ung Li gestures her desire to speak, and Vang Troi nods her permission.

“A Western Wyvern horde attempted to slay the Black Witch,”

Ung Li states, “during the Battle for Voloi.”

Vang Troi nods at the tall, spiky-haired commander. “Led by Naga the Unbroken’s horde,”

she affirms. “We stand in alliance with them.”

“And what of the Amaz?”

Iris demands, her fiery gaze swinging toward Queen Freyja Zyrr with a heat that’s so confrontationally charged, it could melt iron.

Queen Freyja meets Iris’s domineering gaze with formidable calm, her eyes like twin blades, the dark runic tattoos on her hazel face only enhancing Freyja’s aura of queenly might. You’re going to grow into this position quickly, Vang Troi notes with guarded approval.

“The Mages have laid waste to our homeland,”

Queen Freyja levels at Iris in a low, implacable tone. “Murdered our women and daughters.”

She fixes her formidable gaze back on Vang Troi. “We will ally with you to kill the Black Witch. But in a female-only legion. My soldiers will not be sullied by proximity to men.”

“You’d put that first?”

Iris lashes back in a fury. “Over slaying the Black Witch and rescuing the Icaral of Prophecy from Vogel’s grip?”

Freyja’s guards stiffen, battle ready as they stare Iris and her Lasair allies down.

Inwardly cursing, Vang Troi takes in the fractured situation, the words of her deceased mentor, Chi Nam, edging into her mind: Politics is the art of the possible.

Vang Troi’s gut tenses with grief over the loss of Chi Nam and regret over her mentor’s disastrous final decision to help the Black Witch survive, as she curses herself over how she allowed so many of the Black Witch’s allies into Noilaan and its Wyvernguard, as well as the Death Fae who refused to fully align with any army or land.

Still, the wisdom of Chi Nam’s words remains relevant in this fraught moment. What’s possible here might be messy, but coalition building is messy. And Vang Troi knows there might be room to negotiate.

She’s well aware of Freyja Zyrr’s hidden relationship with Clive Soren. Which means further compromise might well be on the table, unlike with the late Queen Alkaia, who Vang Troi greatly respected save for Alkaia’s zealot-like inflexibility regarding men. But from her shocking choice of young Freyja as her successor, it’s clear that Queen Alkaia saw the necessary direction of the future.

“We will deploy with a female-only combined force,”

Vang Troi declares, looking to Clive Soren. “Our coalition’s male forces will remain stationed in the Eastern Realm, guarding the East with the bulk of our Vu Trin forces.”

Clive stiffens then nods, and Vang Troi catches the intense, covert look that passes between him and Freyja.

“And what of Vo’s Sacred Zhilin Stylus?”

presses Commander Hung Xho, the bald portal sorceress’s brown brow deeply furrowed. “Is it still in the Crow Witch’s possession? She was the Zhilin’s Bearer when I was with her in the Agolith.”

“During the Battle for Voloi,”

Vang Troi replies, “the Black Witch was seen holding a gray wand. The glimpse was fleeting, but our forces did not spot Vo’s Sacred Stylus on her.”

She peers at everyone assembled. “We must locate it. I’ve received intelligence that Vogel is intent on finding it, which means it is either dangerous or empowering to him.”

She inhales, jaw tensing. “It is clear now that Elloren Grey was never a true Bearer of the Zhilin—”

her eyes flit to the Lasair “—or the Wand of Myth, as some in the West call it.”

Iris spits out an irate sound, eyes burning. “We call it no such thing. It is the fabled Myyr’vhhyo Shard! Rightful amplifying tool of the Lasair!”

Angry sounds of agreement rise up from the Lasair surrounding Iris.

Sweet Holy Vo, preserve us, Vang Troi grinds out in the back of her mind, but she beats back her resurgence of frustration.

“Regardless of the Shard-Stylus’s true name,”

Vang Troi says, “the Black Witch was clearly not its Bearer, but its kidnapper. And now, we must reclaim it.”

Her stance tightens, military formal. “My allies, we are in a race against time to slay the Black Witch, rescue the Icaral of Prophecy, and take hold of both the Wand-Stylus of Myth and Vogel’s Shadow Wand. If we fail in these tasks, not only the Eastern Realm, but the entirety of Erthia will fall to the Magedom’s Shadow.”

A potent silence descends. Most everyone in this room is old enough to remember the last Black Witch’s sweep into the East and her cruel reign of fire. And Elloren Gardner Grey’s attack on Voloi hammered home the horrific, inescapable point—Elloren’s power dwarfs her grandmother’s.

“The Prophecy’s time is here,”

Hung Xho proclaims, and Vang Troi is hard-pressed to disagree. Yvan Guryev’s prophesied triumph over the Black Witch is essential, not just for the survival of the East, but for all that is good on Erthia.

Vang Troi’s gaze sweeps over those in the room, the path forward solidifying. “Send a larger contingent of our most elite trackers after the Black Witch’s allies. And prepare to portal northwest.”

She hardens her expression, growing predatorially focused. “We will meet Vogel’s forces with storm and fury,”

she vows. “Together, we will fight them and hunt down the Black Witch. Together, we will slay Elloren Gardner Gray and rescue Yvan Guryev.”

Ferocity burns hot through her core of sapphire power. “And together, we will strike down Vogel and his ‘Most Holy Magedom.’?”