overwhelming rush.
Lukas stumbles back, nearly falling over as his fire-and earthlines contract and all of the runes on Chi Nam’s rune staff and Valasca’s rune blades blink out of sight.
I stalk toward them all, power whipping through me along with my overpowering rage as I close in on them, my anger over being attacked seeming to have taken on a life of its own.
“Get back!” I cry at them, furious over their cruelty, my words the lash of a whip. “Keep your magic away from me!” My face twists into a grimace, magic slashing through my lines as I stalk to Lukas, furious.
Lukas is flushed, a sheen of sweat on his skin, his eyes fierce. He leans closer to me, his lips twisting into a feral smile. “Ah, finally. Finally. The Black Witch is here! I wondered when she’d finally show herself!”
Another flash of rage overtakes me in a blinding rush. I pull my Wand, rip the cloth off it, and jab it to Lukas’s throat, my magic rushing to it. “Don’t ever attack me again,” I snarl as power courses through me with lethal force. “I could cut you down right here, if I wanted to.”
Lukas moves closer, ignoring the Wand pressed into his neck. “Yes, Elloren,” he hisses back. “You could. Which is why you need to stop acting like you’re weak and start acting like a warrior, no matter what monstrous thing comes at you!”
A sudden reckoning bears down on me, my anger imploding under the sheer weight of its immensity.
I pull the Wand away from Lukas’s neck and take a faltering step back, thrown into turmoil over being faced with my first military attack.
I’m on a collision course with Vogel and the entire Gardnerian military and probably the whole of Alfsigroth and Noilaan and Ishkartaan—and they’re going to send every nightmare thing they can think of out to subdue me.
I’m disastrously ill prepared to face even a small fraction of this fate.
How can I be the Black Witch with even my allies set against me? I rage as my emotions circle down toward the rapid loss of faith.
A face suddenly lights in my mind, halting the descent.
Fernyllia’s granddaughter—little Fern.
An image of the child fills my thoughts, her small hand clutching my skirts as she sobbed and protectively hugged her cloth doll, Mee’na. That terrible night when the Gardnerian mobs were attacking Urisk and cutting off the tips of their ears.
I’ll protect you. We all will, I promised her that night.
I wonder—is Fern in the Noi lands right now, clutching her beloved doll? Safe for the moment?
Not safe for long if these insect beasts come for her.
Not if Vogel comes for her.
Another vision accosts my mind—an army of the many-eyed insect monsters swarming into the Eastern Realm. And Fern, running from them as a massive foreclaw slams down toward her small frame...
No.
I inhale and flex my hand against the Wand.
I’ll protect you. We all will.
I scan the darkness of the wilds, the hostile trees, knowing that Lukas is right.
I need to be strong. Even in the face of impossible odds. Even in the face of a monstrous attack.
Because this is bigger than all of us.
A shimmer of light catches my eye, and I look up to find a Watcher sitting high in the dark canopy of forest, the gleaming ivory bird there and then vanishing from sight.
I pull in a surprised breath, both chastened and inspired by the sight. There’s an echo of anguish still swimming in me, but I find the strength to tamp it down.
“I need your help in learning how to fight like a soldier,” I admit to Lukas, to all of them. “I’m not trained like all of you. I’m a violin maker and an apothecary. I’ve never seen combat. I need your help.”
“We’ll train you,” Lukas says, passionate resolve in his gaze as he steps toward me.
“How much longer until we can get out of here?” Valasca asks Chi Nam, her tone urgent. “We can’t train anyone if we’re eaten by demonic insects.” The portal’s center is now lit with a silver sheen, and I notice that the runes on Chi Nam’s staff and the hilts of Valasca’s rune blades are brightly charged once more.
“Any minute now,” Chi Nam answers as she scrutinizes the brightening portal, and I push my Wand back into my tunic’s pocket, my magic’s pull toward it drawing down.
Lukas cuts a hard look at Chi Nam and Valasca. “Stay sharp. There could be more scorpios. They normally swarm.”
Valasca