Olilly steps forward, a bright smile now on her face as she looks into Kirin’s beautiful dark eyes and takes his hand into hers.

CHAPTER NINE

SHADOW LINES

Elloren Grey

Xishlon night, twenty-first hour

Xishlon music and revelry waft up from the tiers below as I stare at the tracking rune on the back of my hand, frozen in disbelief.

The rune reads that Lukas is right here.

But...how can that be?

I draw my Ash’rion blade, frantically scanning the cascade of purple-glittering tiers, as if I could fight my way to Lukas through the city’s drum-pulsing chaos led by fierce desire alone.

A stinging swoosh of magic crackles down my wand arm.

I wince, gripping my arm as the Ash’rion slips from my grasp and hits the terrace with a clatter, energy sizzling through me. My eyes widen. The last runes Sage marked on my forearm have brightened, the whole line charged to rotating, luminescent life.

A second rush of power surges up from my feet, through my lines, forcing a gasp from my throat, the power arrowing straight toward my wand arm. The surge passes like a wave, my elemental magic consolidating into a compressed force, and I watch, stunned, as my purple glamour fizzles away and my fastlines emerge, only a slim band of purple coloration around my wrist remaining. I flex my fist, a sense of destiny descending as my magic begins to stream toward my wand hand like a river’s unimpeded flow.

I’m the Black Witch, I realize in a sweep of reckoning as points of tickling energy spring to life on my wand hand. My gaze snaps to my palm, my attention seized by lines of gray splotching into being there and rapidly linking to form delicate lines encased in a circle.

Dread clenches my stomach. A rune...

I raise my other hand, ready to press my fingers to the summoning rune stone Or’myr gave me, only to find its purple rune dimmed to dull gray. Before my alarm-fettered mind can fully register what’s happening, a wave of power slams into me from the West.

The full body-blow of it shatters all thought. I grunt, driven back a step, a dark tree blasting to life in my mind, its Shadow energy spreading out from the rune to snake through my affinity power in an undulating rush.

I yank my wand hand back into view and all the blood drains from my head.

My fastlines are slithering across my hand, morphed from black to Shadow gray, save for a few stationary Sealing loops around my wrist, the gray lines twining around the dark rune.

“No,” I rasp as I frantically scrape at the rune, nails drawing blood. “No, no, no...”