Chapter 1
Land of Astonia, Kingdom of Cragmont, North Cove – April 6, 1594
“I won’t do it.”
Kate jerked her arm from Lord Sylvan’s grasp as he forced her into her bedchamber.
“I won’t be your magikal slave. Or any other kind either,” she added, just to be clear.
In mocking disrespect for her wishes, the guard slammed the door behind them. Kate darted for the handle. A heartbeat before she latched onto the knob, a familiar boom echoed as the crossbeam crashed into place outside. Bolted in more securely than a castle keep, she turned her attention back to Lord Sylvan.
The man’s hard eyes took a leisurely stroll through the room, lingering on the lit candles, the books on her desk, and the untouched knitting basket before coming to rest on her face.
“The wounds healed,” he said in his eerie accent. “The deed is done.”
“We can undo it.”
“It’s irreversible.” He moved to the hearth, not a hint of sympathy, empathy or even acknowledgment that the irreversible act had been horrific.
She glanced at her hand, just as she’d done a dozen times over the past hour. And just as she’d confirmed the same dozen times, the skin looked whole. The bloody gash was gone, as if the barbaric rite had never happened.
“Didn’t your uncle explain the nuances of the spell?” Sylvan asked, stoking the fire.
“Of course,” Kate said, flooding the words with sarcasm. “Moments before the blessed ritual, dear Uncle Morten pulled me aside and said, ‘Kate, I’m going to seal you against your will to a fellow sorcerer. You won’t mind will you? Obeying his every command forever?’”
Sylvan chuckled coolly. “No, I don’t suppose he said that.”
None of it made sense. Aside from the jarring revelation that the myths about genies were real, Kate couldn’t comprehend why Morten would give her to this man. To any man. Using her powers for his aims had been his favorite obsession for half her life.
“Are you holding something over him? Did he give me to you to appease a debt?”
“No,” Sylvan said, placing kindling on the hot embers in the hearth.
Morten wouldn’t tie his boots if it didn’t forward his plans. “Did you pay him something—a kingdom—in exchange for me?”
“Are you worth that much?” he asked, adding a log to the pile.
“Is that a no, then?”
Another log went in. “He thinks I’m going to command you on his behalf.”
Thinks?
Not knows?
Did the man have other aims? An unsettling energy stirred within her. She’d never met a Zafarian who’d dare cross Morten, but Sylvan certainly wasn’t like her uncle’s other advisors. In appearance alone he stood apart from the herd.
Where the other sorcerers were wrinkled and wiry, this one was tall and broad-shouldered. And he didn’t sport the usual patchwork of gray often adorning Morten’s confidants, but thick locks the color of flame. In short, he was young, maybe eight and twenty—only a handful of years older than she was.
“Thinks?” she asked. “As in he thinks you’re going to help him, but you aren’t?”
As he shifted the burning wood in the hearth, the fire roared so high it warmed her across the bedchamber.
“Are you ready to part ways with your uncle?”
“Part ways?”
He glanced over his shoulder.
She stared.
“Would you like to leave?”
The word, the promise, the trap hung in the air between them. “Is this a trick? If I say, ‘Holy gods, yes,’ you’ll tell me to be a good genie and you’ll take me away someday?”
He dragged an unwelcome gaze over her, hair to boots. “We leave today.”
Today? Her heart hammered so loudly, she was sure the guard heard it in the corridor. Having been conned a time or twenty by her uncle, Kate reached out to confirm the declaration. Opening herself up, she drew in his feelings.
The moment his energy touched hers, a brew of hate and vengeance coiled around her heart like a snake twisting up a tree. Holy gods, he despised Morten as much as she did.
As she breathed through the biting emotions, she zeroed in on his intentions, his desires. He needed her for something, wanted to use her powers for something, but overshadowing all, she felt his burning ache to return home. As if he couldn’t get there fast enough.
“Unless you’re more fond of your uncle than you’re letting on,” he said, rising.
“I’m more fond of liver cakes.”
His brows inched up.
“They don’t stay down,” she added.
One corner of his mouth hitched.
“What do you need me for?”
“Does it matter?”
Perhaps not. He wanted to use her Gifts, but she could use him instead. She could go with him, even make him think she was pleased about it, then break away from him once they were safe from her uncle. Sylvan was handing her the best chance she’d ever had at escaping Morten’s hell.
A sensation rippled through her, one so foreign it took a moment for her to identify it as hope.
“Where would we go? Where are you from?” she asked, mortified to discover she’d started shaking.
“Far.”
Of course it was far. His sharp accent and unusual attire whispered of distant shores. And for the first time, she realized the rhythm of his walk and conviction of his talk screamed nobility. And not the sort trailing off a feeble branch. His people were of the trunk…and the roots.
As she envisioned a long voyage and her uncle seething on the other side of the world, Sylvan said, “You’ll need a hooded cloak that will hide your hair and eyes. They make you too easy to identify.”
Yes, the black hair and pale eyes helped her blend in among the gypsies, but she suspected they weren’t who she’d be staying with. Not this time.
“The bigger issue is my Gifts,” she said. “And yours. Morten can track those far more easily than anything related to my appearance.”
“We won’t use them until we’re out of his reach.”
And he snuffed out her budding hope with one simple phrase. Sylvan’s plan would fail. He didn’t know what they were dealing with. She could work the spell to curb her Gifts, but if Sylvan thought it was safe and used his, there would be no escape.
“I thought you knew what he can do. It doesn’t matter how far we go. He can sense our Gifts anywhere.”
He glanced around the chamber again, as if looking for something. “My land is guarded. His Gift won’t reach us there.”
A guarded land out of Morten’s reach sounded like a fairytale. But Sylvan’s tone indicated he believed it, and no sorcerer who valued his life would cross Morten if he couldn’t get to safety. Was it possible there was such a place? Was it possible she wouldn't have to curb her Gifts forever? Was it possible her life had finally taken a turn for the better?
“Ready the cloak and pack anything else you wish to bring.”
When she didn’t move, he fetched her cloak from where it hung.
“Now. Pack now.”
Kate had no choice but to trust, as alien as that was to her. She quickly set down the cloak, threw open a large traveling trunk and began gathering up her few precious belongings.