Chapter One The Black Witch

Chapter One The Black Witch

Elloren

Shadow wasteland

I’m the Black Witch of Prophecy.

The will to fight pounds through me as Vogel drags my vine-bound and gagged form out of the rippling Void darkness of his

Shadow portal. We emerge into a deserted steel gray cavern. Shadowfire torches are set into its walls, flickering pewter light.

One of his arms slung around my torso, Vogel drags me into a narrow stone tunnel with effortless Icaral strength.

I glance around with the caginess of a prey animal, searching for weapons, my feet futilely scudding against stone for purchase.

Vogel’s grotesque multi-eyed raven follows us, its wings beating the air as it flies from one stony outcropping to another,

my heart ratcheting into a thunderous beat.

I’m the Black Witch.

And Vogel is the Icaral of Prophecy.

Yvan’s fire burns with volcanic heat through our bond, rife with wild, snarling energy.

My gut clenches, viselike.

Because I can sense that Vogel’s silvery Shadowfire is stronger than Yvan’s. And stronger, now, than mine, a whole burning

abyss of Void fire churning inside him, ready to finish consuming everything .

We round a corner, and an arching entrance comes into view, an iron door set into it, heavily studded.

Two burly, blank-faced Level Five Mage soldiers bracket the door, their gray eyes glowing, and I can sense their completed tether to Vogel’s Shadow, invisible Void power curling out from the Shadow Wand toward the grayed fastlines marking the soldiers’ hands and wrists. I trace how the malignant power winds through their every Mageline and wraps demonic fog through their minds, their auras of Level Five earth magery being siphoned into the Shadow Wand.

I zero in on the gray-smoking wands sheathed at their sides, every nerve in my body coming alive.

Wood.

I clench my branch hand, my heart a battle axe against my ribs even as I remember that these deadwood wands are no longer

any use to me. I have to get hold of living wood. I focus inward, a distant sense of the Zhilaan Forest struggling to send fire to me over the great expanse between

us sizzling against my rootlines, tenuously anchoring my foliage-amplified magic.

“Unlock the door,” Vogel commands.

One of the soldiers grabs the ring of keys attached to his belt and sets about unlocking the door’s three locks. I take note

of the Shadow locking rune emblazoned in the door’s center as the soldier steps back.

My feet skid against stone as Vogel drags me forward with a vicious yank then presses the Shadow Wand’s tip into the center

of the locking rune, which erupts into tendrils of undulating smoke.

Seeming satisfied, Vogel shoves the door open and drags me into a cell.

As he slams the iron door shut behind us, I take in two black canvas military cots before me and surprise bolts through me.

Fallon Bane is lying on one of them.

She’s bound by Shadow vines, her eyes glowing a churning gray, as if Vogel trapped two thunderheads in her irises. Shadow

fastlines identical to Vogel’s mark her hands and wrists.

Forcing even breaths, I try to calm the disgust roiling through me, even as the urge to retch tightens my gut.

Did he take her after wresting control of her mind?

Fallon’s eyes meet mine. The air dips to ice, her lips curling back into an animalistic snarl, my alarm intensifying as Vogel

drags me toward the empty cot.

Living wood... I need living wood... pounds every slamming beat of my heart, my heels battering against stone in a futile attempt to fight Vogel’s pull. I sense

Yvan reading the urgent flare of my internal fire, heat searing through me as he floods my lines with a formidable surge of

his Wyvernfire.

Fire I can’t access without a living branch.

Vogel hurls me onto the empty cot, then steps back in a blur and levels the Shadow Wand at me.

I growl against my gag and thrash as he binds me to the cot, Yvan’s fire scorching through our bond so intensely that I begin

to vibrate from the pulsing heat.

Vogel lurches forward, a wild look in his eyes as silver fire overtakes them. Dark horns rise from his head, and his pupils

contract to vertical slits. He grabs one of my ears, and I snarl my protest against my gag as his sharp claws dig in then

pierce clear through my ear’s Dryad point.

An explosion of agony bursts through the side of my head as Vogel rips off the pointed top of my ear. “Aughhhhh!” I cry out

against my gag, my body arching from the pain, warm blood trickling through my hair, Yvan’s fury blazing through me.

“You Fae bitch !” Vogel snarls, drawing back his bloodied hand and shaking off my torn flesh. He levels the Shadow Wand at me once more,

the Wand I’m desperate to get away from him.

Yvan’s fire flashes violet at the edges of my vision as Vogel murmurs what sounds like an Issani spell. A slim line of Shadow

mist bursts out to encircle me, the misty rope slithering around my body before dissolving into it. Ear throbbing, I tense

as the Shadow twines tight around my rootlines then flows toward Fallon and ropes around her prone form.

Before dissolving into her and around her lines of power, as well.

“I’m connecting you and my Black Witch with a Shadow twinning spell,” Vogel hisses, giving me a fanged smile.

Terror strikes through me as he casts another line of misty Shadow from my lines to Fallon’s. Then another. And another. Weaving

us together with a corrupted version of the spell linking Gwynn and Mavrik.

Weaving together Fallon’s Magelines and my Forest-bound Dryad rootlines with one of the strongest spells on Erthia.

A connection to Fallon’s power takes hold, her corrupted ice and wind powers suddenly invading my rootlines and painfully

chilling my skin as a portion of my magic starts to stream toward Fallon’s dormant fire-, earth-, and lightlines.

My power graying as it’s pulled into her.

I bite into my gag, forcing back panic. Fallon’s dormant earth-, fire-, and lightlines slowly awaken, like demons rising.

“You don’t deserve your power, Fae whore,” Vogel sneers as he weaves his spell, his horrible raven motionless as it watches from a stony outcropping. “It belongs to my Black Witch,” he hisses. “The Magedom’s true Black Witch.”

I growl against my gag, tensing every muscle and line as I fight to hold on to my fireline’s power and my bond to Yvan while

I struggle to think of some way to free myself, get hold of the Shadow Wand, and take Vogel down. Ignoring the pain hammering

through my ear and the poisonous draw on my power, I cast my Dryad senses about, frantically searching for some sense of surviving

Forest creatures, some remaining speck of the Living World, that I can draw on for aid in this Shadowed hellscape, but there’s

nothing .

Only the terrible, lifeless Shadow Void for leagues and leagues. No living wood. No surviving animal or plant kindreds. Yvan

and my allies too far away.

Vogel’s green-glimmering lips lift into a smug smile, as if he’s reading my thoughts, his utter victory sliding into place.

He leans in close. “After I’ve drawn every drop of your power into my Black Witch,” he croons as he presses the Wand’s tip

into my throat, “I will rip your Fae heart out of your chest as your Icaral demon flies in to rescue you. And then I will watch as your death shrivels

his power to nothing and your whore-bond to him is destroyed .”

An image of Fallon striking down a powerless Yvan and Vogel falling on him, claws out, as he rips the wings from Yvan’s back

and Fallon spears ice through his body assaults my mind.

Growing desperate, I blaze the energy of warning through our bond, but Yvan’s furious fire only intensifies, moving closer

every second.

A heavy, reverberating knock sounds on the metal door, drawing Vogel’s and my attention, a sense of vicious gray fire whooshing

through the door to burn around us.

Vogel straightens and sheathes his Wand, his eyes cooling to pale green, pupils rounding and horns retracting. “Enter,” he

commands.

The door opens to reveal a pyrr-demon standing between the two guards with a glamour I can see through. His eyes glow sulfuric

red, Shadow-smoke horns tendriling up from his head. “Excellency,” the demon says, baring sharp, black teeth. “Damion Bane

has arrived at the base’s Central Hall. He’s demanding to see his sister.”

Vogel straightens, his inferno of Shadowed Wyvernfire held tight in his core. He glances at the two soldiers bracketing the door. “Remain at your posts while I meet with him,” he orders, casting me a chillingly brutal smile. “Damion Bane will see his sister soon enough.”

With that, Vogel strides out of the cell and slams the door with a soul-crushing clang. The door’s Shadow locking rune’s glow

brightens, tendrils of gray mist snaking through the complicated locks as they click into place.