After a long moment of deliberation, Lukas resheathes his wand but keeps tight hold of my arm.
My heart feels like it will pound straight through my chest.
“Very clever, Lachlan,” the Vu Trin comments. “Hiding the girl in Halfix for so many years.”
“Believe me, Commander Vin,” Lukas’s father replies as he glares at his son, “it was completely unintentional.”
“No one was hiding me!” I insist with spiking alarm.
Lukas’s quick look silences me, his eyes a warning.
“If she is found to be powerful,” the Elfhollen puts in to Lachlan Grey, “we will be taking her into custody.”
“No,” Lachlan firmly counters. “What’s to prevent you from killing her?”
Killing me? My gut clenches, and I stifle a cry. I move closer to Lukas and clutch at the side of his tunic.
“We could place her in the High Tower under a joint guard,” the Elfhollen offers, “until we come to an agreement regarding what to do with her.”
“Dismiss half of your guard, and I will consent to the girl’s testing,” Lachlan capitulates.
Commander Vin eyes Lachlan with amused suspicion, then gestures toward Lukas with her chin. “Dismiss him, and I will agree to it. We all know that your young lieutenant is equal to ten of us.”
Lachlan’s eyes flick back and forth from Lukas to the Vu Trin guard. “Very well. Lukas, you are dismissed.”
Lukas makes no move to release my arm.
“Please,” I beg them, the word bursting out. “I just want to see my brothers.”
“Silence, Gardnerian!” Commander Vin snarls. Her hostility sends me inwardly reeling.
“Lukas,” Lachlan says firmly, his eyes belying a steely confidence, “you will accompany the Vu Trin guard to their western base.” He raises his brow at Commander Vin. “Agreed?”
Commander Vin nods.
Lukas stares hard into his father’s eyes. His hand loosens from my arm.
I hold on to his tunic, heart racing. “No, please. Don’t leave me!”
He turns to me and places both hands on my arms. “Elloren, they’re going to test you, and then they will talk. There’s enough of our Mage Guard here to ensure your safety.”
“No!” I try to cling to him, but firm hands pull me back.
There’s a flash of indecision in Lukas’s eyes, but then his face hardens and he turns away. I watch, despairing, as he strides out of the room flanked by ten Vu Trin sorceresses and a contingent of Elfhollen.
Desperation takes hold. I struggle against the hands that restrain me, tears stinging at my eyes. “Let me go!” I insist. “My brothers are here. I need to find them...”
And then Commander Vin is before me. She stares me down, her eyes narrowed to hostile slits.
I stop struggling and shrink back from her.
“Elloren Gardner,” she says, steel in her eyes, “you will come with us.”
CHAPTER TWO
Wandtesting
They lead me to an underground military armory, the huge, circular room stocked with weaponry of every size. Swords, knives, terrifying razored chains and other objects of mutilation hang thick on the stone walls.
“Elloren Gardner,” Commander Kam Vin orders as the door closes behind us, “you will explain the extent of your training.”
“Training?” I croak out. What on Erthia is she talking about?
The Vu Trin sorceress narrows her eyes at me. “Yes, your training. In the martial arts.”
“I... I don’t understand,” I stammer, bewildered.
She purses her lips and starts pacing, her black cloak billowing behind her, never taking her eyes off me, looking at me as though I’m a dangerous, unpredictable animal.
“What kind of wandwork have you done, Mage Gardner?” she persists.
I’m completely lost. “I don’t...we never had wands...”
She stops pacing and points at me for emphasis. “Mage Gardner, answer the question! I will ask again. What type of wandwork have you done?”
“None!” I cry, holding my hands out, palms up.
“What about swordwork?” she asks slyly, as if she’s caught on to the game I’m playing.
“None!” I insist. “Why are you asking me...?”
“Knife magic?”
“What? No!”
“Caledonian stick fighting?”
“No!”
“Asteroth staff work?”
She goes on and on through a list of about twenty more forms of fighting I have never heard of in my life. I’m lost in a wilderness of confusion.
“No!” I finally cry in frustration. “I’ve never done any of these things!”
She pauses and glares at me, her brow furrowing sharply before she continues pacing. “Your uncle, he has not given you any training in the martial arts?”
My confusion spikes. “No, of course not. He’s a violin maker!”
“But surely he must have given you a wand.”
I shake my head vehemently. “He didn’t even allow them in the house.” The image of Sage’s white wand briefly flickers through my mind.
The sorceress eyes me with disbelief, one hand placed squarely on her hip. “Do not play games with me, Elloren Gardner! Your uncle must have armed you in some way.”
“He didn’t,” I bite out. “Uncle Edwin doesn’t like violence.”
Commander Vin freezes in her tracks and looks at me like I’ve started speaking some unintelligible language. “What?” she spits out.
“Uncle Edwin doesn’t like...”
“I heard what you said!”
“Then why did you...”
“What have you been doing, then?”
“What do you mean?”
“At your uncle’s house!”
I glare at her, frustration boiling over. “Tending the garden, taking care of the animals.” I’m careful not to mention the violins. Females aren’t supposed to apprentice as luthiers, and I don’t want to get Uncle Edwin in trouble with these horrible people. “I read, make herbal remedies. And...and sometimes I make wooden toys...”
“Toys?”
“Little animal figurines, mostly.” I shrug. “Sometimes doll furniture. My uncle sells them at the market...”
The Elfhollen, who have been standing very still and regarding me coldly, venture small looks of surprise at each other.
“You are being evasive!” the sorceress grinds out as she points an accusatory finger at me. “Arm yourself, Gardnerian!”
One of the sorceress’s underlings steps forward and hands me a smooth, polished wand of Red Oak.
Commander Vin points to a table across the room, where a small, unlit candle in a brass holder is placed. “You will now produce a flame.”
I look down at the wand in my hand then back at her, dumbfounded. “How?”
“Mage Gardner, do not feign ignorance with me! It is the simplest of spells!”
“I don’t know any spells!”
“Bring her the grimoire, Myn!” the sorceress barks in the direction of her underling.
Myn brings me a book and flips the worn pages open. “Aim your wand and speak these words,” she instructs stiffly.
I look the words over. They seemed vaguely familiar. Like something from a dream. A dream with fire.
I lift the wand awkwardly and point it at the candle. “Illiumin...” I begin, my voice high and shaky.
Commander Vin lets out a sound of impatient disgust. “Elloren Gardner!” she barks. “You are holding the wand incorrectly. You must make contact with the palm, or the wand energy cannot flow through you.”
I rearrange the wand so that one end is pressing against my palm and point it at the candle once more. My hand shaking, I lift the grimoire and begin to speak the words of the candle-lighting spell.
As soon as the words roll off my lips, a pure, crackling energy begins to prick at the balls of my feet, and the image of an immense tree bursts into the back of my mind. I gasp as a much larger jolt of energy shoots up through me toward the wand, slams against it and then violently and painfully ricochets backward through me.
I drop the wand and it falls to the floor with a sharp clank.
Stunned, I looked over at the candle.
Nothing. Not even a tendril of smoke. But my arm aches as if it’s been burned from within.
What just happened?