Chapter One
Magic.
It whispered through the castle.
Heavy tendrils of invisible power moved along the castle halls, slid around the corners, eased its way beneath locked doors and eavesdropped amid Wizard Twins.
Thankfully, the eavesdropping part wasn’t her job, Astra thought morosely as she stood guard at the entrance to Princess Marina’s wing of the castle. She had had enough of the inner thoughts of Wizard Twins each time she had drawn near to the Wizards who should have been her own.
Who should have been her own…
Holding back her grief was a near impossible task, and yet one she knew she must persevere to succeed at. Because failure would mean revelation. It would mean revealing herself as the natural Consortress to those who were now sought as criminals. As practitioners of the dark arts. As murderers.
She stared straight ahead along the hall, pushing back the agony, the sorrow. Pushing back a pain unlike anything she could have imagined existing.
She had believed nothing could be worse than knowing her Consorts and being unable to reveal herself to them. She had believed nothing could be worse than knowing Wizard Twins who should have been her own sought another as their Consortress.
There was a greater pain.
There was the pain of knowing those her heart and Sorceress spirit was already tied to were now known as the most vile of any in the land. To add to that pain was the knowledge that shed her tears. To release the grief, that now only built within her soul, would be to reveal herself. And should she do such, then she could be used to draw those dark Wizards from wherever they hid and force them to be brought to justice.
Could she live with the knowledge that their first glimpse of her as their Consortress would also be as the one who had betrayed them?
She could not bear such knowledge.
She could not bear allowing such to happen.
Standing guard, she and another warrioress of the Princess Brigade reinforced the magick of the Guardian of the Power of Covenan. They stood ready should any enemy manage to get past both the magickal guards the Sashtain Twins had set in place as well as the protective power of the land that the Guardian of the Power of Covenan commanded.
She carried on each hour, knowing each second, each minute, could be the last that she could hold back this pain.
Not that she or the others could do much if anyone or anything managed to slip past such vast power.
As the tendrils of magick wove across the land, Astra could feel the faintest disturbance reaching out to her, calling for her.
The demand was faint, weak, though not in peril. There was no danger, yet the demand was one she couldn’t ignore either. It pulled at her. It poked at her like a child determined to be heard.
Shifting restlessly, she glanced around the hall, uncomfortable with ignoring the demand, yet not entirely certain from where it came. Closing her eyes, she allowed her senses to open further, to expand and reach out to the call. It could be a Sorceress in need. Although they did not face peril at this moment, it did not mean they would not face it soon. As her answering magick touched the call once more, she sensed, rather than Sorceress or other female magickal being, it was instead an animal in need.
She never knew which creatures, with or without magick, would reach out to her, or even if they would. The affinity she seemed to have with the creatures of Covenan drew her often from her duties at the castle. Until now, that hadn’t been a problem.
But with Queen Amoria and her heir Serena having been stolen from the castle, and all Sorceresses on high alert and determined that their last remaining princess, the Guardian of the Power of Covenan, not be taken from them as well, Astra fought to ignore the summons.
There was no true peril.
Frowning, she attempted to identify the call, but either it was too immature or too weak to identify itself.
Whichever, she knew that ignoring it would not be an option soon.
“I can sense the disturbance as well,” the Sorceress standing guard with her, Aerin, Keeper heir of the Whispering Mountains said quietly. “You cannot ignore it.”
“I cannot leave.” Astra sighed in regret. “Should our Guardian have need of me…”
The other Sorceress gave a slow shake of her head and a gentle smile. “Even I hear the call the land is sending out to you, Keeper.” She smiled back, though the somber concern in her gaze belied any amusement or joy. “Go, heed its summons, I will call another to stand guard over the Guardian’s quarters with me.”
The land was indeed calling out to her, not just the creature in need. This was a demand that even the land itself felt important. A strident summons, one without blood, but one of imperative determination that she heed the demand reaching out to her magick with such fierce voracity.
“Think you need a Sorceress to accompany you?” Aerin asked, her gentle violet eyes watching Astra closely. “Perhaps Camry has rested enough to ride along.”
Astra gave a sharp shake of her head. “There is no danger. Perhaps one of the Unicorns in need.” She frowned. “The call is one of an animal spirit, though nothing in dire danger.”
“So I felt as well,” Aerin agreed. “I’ll call Camry to stand with me and we will watch over Serena as you do what you must.”
Astra feared the summons was more than a simple animal in need though. The call came from the Emerald Valley, the site of the battle that had raged between the Guardian Keeper of the lands, Marina, and the dark magick that had attempted to take the valley where the Griffons’ lair was located.
Her chest clenched at the thought of the Griffons as she all but ran through the tunnels to reach the cavern where several Unicorns awaited the Sorceresses’ needs for transportation.
The new stable caretaker, Azeron, an old and wizened fellow of undetermined age, was securing the light leather saddle the Sorceresses used on the stallion Tripelli as she entered the room.
As she reached the beast he slid the leather halter over its head and handed her the reins.
“The Eastern passage into the Emerald Valley has been cleared.” He spoke softly, his voice roughened with age. “I arrived from that direction and saw the Unicorn foals at play. The way is shorter.”
“You knew my direction how?” She frowned at him as she vaulted into the saddle.
A chuckle rasped from his throat. “You told this fair beast.” He patted the stallion’s neck as it pawed the ground impatiently. “It was he who told me.”
The new caretaker’s accord with the Unicorns had been the only reason the Guardian of the Lands and Princess Serena had allowed him the privilege of caring for the Unicorns that rested within the cavern stables.
The Unicorns seemed to cherish him. Often nuzzling at him for affection, despite the fact he rarely brought them treats. They simply enjoyed his touch.
Giving a sharp nod, she leaned over the stallion’s neck and without command, Tripelli rose to his back legs, pawed the air then came down with a jump that had him shooting from the cavern and making the sharp turn that led to the narrow eastern passage to the Emerald Valley.
Rains often swelled the stream that ran through the passage to dangerous levels, making it hazardous for the Unicorns to cross at the two points where no other path could be taken. If it were clear, then it would remain so until the next hard rains, and would cut the journey to the Emerald Valley by more than half the distance.
Tripelli charged through the Royal Forest, heading for the eastern entrance to Emerald Valley. Powerful legs and a wide chest ensured his endurance, and with the wind playing haphazardly through his mane and Astra’s curls, it was as close as the Sorceresses came to flying until the Griffons had been found.
The eastern passage was wide, filled with lush green grass and sheltering trees. As the caretaker said, the Unicorn mares and their foals frolicked in the small vale and splashed about the stream that wound through it.
The closer she came to the Emerald Valley, the more painful the thought of returning there became.
The spell that had turned the Griffons to stone had been reversed, but for two. The infant male, Tambor, and the half-grown male, Candalar, who had been broken cruelly while in stone form.
Their healers had no idea how to repair the damage, or if repair were even possible. Arrangements would be made to bring them to the castle. Until then, they had been left as they lay, Marina’s fears that even the smallest shard of stone could be lost in the transfer making the decision for her.
Yet, surprisingly she could now sense both males, where before she had not, as she neared the area where they had been left.
Weak. The magick that flowed through them was barely existent, though it had been nonexistent before.
Where once she had felt nothing when she searched for their location, she now felt their warmth, Tambor’s confusion, though not his fear. Candalar was irritated, though neither appeared in distress.
Or if they were, they were unaware of it.
But they wanted her with them now.
She had played with them for many years, soothed their minor wounds caused by play, and often teased them for their clumsiness.
She was one of their favored caretakers, and the closer she came to the area where they had been left broken and discarded, the louder their summons seemed to grow.
Her ears were ringing with the roars they now sent along the telepathic pathways. Her head was buzzing with their demands that she come to them.
Urging Tripelli to greater speed, she held tight to the heavy mane, her gaze narrowed against the wind and her own thoughts.
How could they be calling out to her? How much more heartache could she bear than to hold the cold stone to her breast and know she could not return them from the cold stone forms they had been turned into? There could be no evil greater than that which the Justice Layel had practiced upon the innocent Griffon babes. And no horror Astra imagined could be greater to the cubs.
May the Sentinel Select protect any other being with the slightest thought to harm more of those creatures.
Marina might believe others were more powerful than Astra. She might be uncertain where Astra’s powers were concerned. But Astra was not uncertain. Neither was she unprepared to spill blood in the defense of the animals she had grown so fond of.
Animals that were stone, their magick silenced since the moment the Justice Layel had touched the perverted spell upon them, was surely an evil punishable by the fiery horrors of Shadow Hell.
Clearing the stream and entering the valley, Tripelli took his own path, following his connection with Astra to find his way to the emanations of magick that called to her.
Winding through the edges of the Emerald Valley, sheltered by the heavily leafed, sheltering trees of the Royal Forest, Astra could feel the hope beginning to burn inside her that somehow the spell had been reversed and the cubs were calling out for soothing strokes along their backs or the warm baths the Sorceresses provided.
Surely she would not find cold stone.
Surely it was not the still, gray forms she would find as the cubs’ spirits cried out to her.
The horror of that thought tore at her chest and filled her eyes with tears as the Unicorn made a wide turn around the huge boulders that rested on the forest floor as though tossed there by the gods’ restless play.
Rounding the great stone spheres, the Unicorn came to a sliding stop, his rump nearly touching the ground at the sight that lay across his path.
A sob tore from her lips, a gasping cry of shock at what she found and her inability to process such a sight.
It could not be.
The Delmari Twins. The Wizard traitors both Covenan Warrioresses and Cauldaran Wizard and Sorcerer Warriors were searching for to question in regard to dabbling in dark magick and leading that perverted power into the Griffons’ lair. The two warriors Astra had fought to forget, to push from her soul at the knowledge that they had disappeared before the battle in the valley for the Griffons had ended.
It was believed they had fled from the fight, refusing to battle against the dark evil because they called it master. They were accused of betraying both Sorceresses and Wizards to the dark magick, without care of the consequences.
But it wasn’t dark magick she saw as she slid from the Unicorn’s back and approached cautiously. It was not evil that the land and the Griffon cubs were whispering to her, rather a demand for aid.
Lying beside the Wizard Twins’ unconscious forms were the fully intact, living, breathing, if weakened, forms of the Griffon babes she believed she would never see romping about the valley again.
What caused her to do what she did next, she couldn’t explain.
Well she could, but it was an explanation she didn’t want to venture into at the moment. It was one she couldn’t allow herself to venture into.
Instead, she joined her Wizards in treason.
Chapter Two
The battle for the land of the Sorceresses was one that drained all who fought it.
The magick of the Covenan Sorceress Brigade, twelve warrior Sorceresses—led by the Guardian of the Lands of Covenan, the Guardian of all feminine magick, and commanded by the heir in waiting of the Covenan throne—had nearly lost all they held dear in the battle.
They had been betrayed by one of their most revered Justices, a Sorceress charged with deciding the guilt and innocence of those suspected of criminal acts. And she herself had committed one of the most heinous crimes known. She had betrayed her own to the dark arts and a shadowed evil that had nearly destroyed Emerald Valley.
Lying within the Royal Mountain range, surrounded by towering peaks and nearly unscalable mountain walls, the Emerald Valley had been all but hidden for as long as Covenan had existed.
And here, the Sorceresses had hidden one of their greatest treasures, the nearly extinct flying lions. Creatures whose love and loyalty to the Sorceresses they had been gifted to had been betrayed once before by Cauldaran warriors, and now betrayed again by the Justice who had led that dark evil to them in this once secured valley.
The Griffons’ loyalty and bond to the Sorceresses had nearly destroyed them a millennium ago when they had fought to protect the fleeing Consorts of the Cauldaran Wizards.
The Guardians and Keepers of the Cauldaran lands had wiped their inherent memories and instincts from them, leaving them undefended and without the knowledge of the strength and power they possessed to protect themselves. They had then been sent to the dark desolation of the Shadow Planes, a magickal, often brutal veil where all forms of magick met and intertwined.
Within that dark plane monstrous, dark beings existed, raged and fed on the fear and blood of others as they fought to escape Shadow Hell. It was a place that raged with terror and echoed with the screams of agony.
Once there, with no memory of their Sorceresses or their abilities to defend themselves, the great winged lions had nearly perished as they faced trial after trial, battle after battle, and roared out in rage as they were killed one by one, until only a few were left. Finally struggling free, those that remained had found themselves within the human realm, and at their less-than-tender mercies.
Queen Amoria’s grandmother had found the first Griffon, a fragile cub near death and missing part of its downy-covered wing. Knowing its mother must be near, she had gathered her Sorceresses together, slipped into the human realm, and found not just the mother, wounded and near death, but also two other cubs.
Over the course of several years, using her power as the Guardian of the Lands, and combining it with her magickal Keeper Sorceresses’ powers, she had called yet more to her.
Leading them across the Abysmal Causeway that separated magick from human, she had gathered each Griffon her magick could find and brought them home.
After more than half a century, the Griffons were finally home, despite the betrayal of the Wizards and the cruelty of the humans who found them.
Wizards had betrayed their Sorceresses throughout history as well. With the Wizards’ arrival in Covenan, betrayal had come to the Sorceresses once again, and to the Griffons as well. Though this betrayal had come in the form of a trusted and revered Justice known for her wisdom and compassion, still many believed it was spawned by the Wizards.
Gods, what evil could have been strong enough to turn her from the Sorceresses she had sworn her magick oath to defend with her life?
And what right did she, Astra Al’madere, have to ask such a question? For here she sat, committing an act nearly as treasonous as the one the Justice had committed.
What was she doing? Using both magick as well as the strength of the Unicorn to drag these traitors to safety?
Why did she bother?
Traitors, after all, were put to death, no matter how handsome, strong, or how they drew a Sorceress Keeper in Waiting.
Traitors were reviled.
Especially Wizard traitors.
They were the most reviled of all.
Yet, using all the strength of the magick she possessed, she managed to create a bed of the softest furs in the farthest depths of a sheltering cave. There, nearly collapsing from the effort to drag them to it, she settled them upon the furs before covering them with yet more.
Waving her hand to the fire pit she had created to their side, she willed the wood to ignite, watching as the flames began to slowly lick at the dried tinder before growing in heat and strength to spread its warmth toward the two males. Astra Al’madere, heir to the Keeper of the Power of the Mystic Forests, stared at the Wizard Twins she had hidden from the Justice of the Guardian of Covenan. Lying unconscious on the bed of furs, sprawled in exhausted abandon, they looked almost—innocent.
Cuddled beside them lay the two weakened Griffon cubs, which she still couldn’t believe lived.
Rather than lying broken and bleeding on the valley floor once the spell of stone had been lifted, they were intact, breathing and warm, if weak and confused.
Still, they lived.
That feat alone was one she still found hard to believe.
The babe, Tambor, would need to suckle soon. But his little body drew breaths as his wings fluffed against it for warmth. He was no longer lying in pieces. The stone fragments of the statue dark magic had turned him into was no longer crushed beneath a cruel boot.
Candalar, the half-grown male, had been broken as well. Wings and legs busted from his stone body. Had the spell been reversed before his body had been replaced intact once again, then he would not have known warmth, gentleness or caring again.
His last memory before entering the Garden of Nirvana would have been that of pain, and of dark cruelty.
It would have forever shadowed his afterlife.
Instead, he was warm once more, his pale, amazingly strong wings wrapped about the tawny-and-white fur of his developing body as he snuffled at some dream.
They had found warmth between the two Wizard Twins when Astra had found herself too weak to return them immediately to their mother after bringing Rhydan and Torran Delmari into the cavern.
She too was exhausted.
The magick expended to pull the heavily muscled warriors into the cavern, to create the thick, soft bed of furs in which they lay, and warm the cavern with the fire that now blazed at the bottom of the bed had been near more than her strength could bear.
The battle with the Justice Layel for the Emerald Valley, the heavily forested land the Sorceresses had hidden the Griffons in for far longer than a century, had been draining. The others of the Sorceress Brigade had all been carried to the castle on the backs of the great snow owls the warriors flew, too weak to mount and ride the Unicorns that awaited them.
The Griffons, weakened from the spell that had turned them to stone, could do naught now but call out to the missing cubs.
The Griffoness’s calls were the most plaintive, pleading with her babe Tambor to come and suck.
Did the Griffoness grieve for her lost cubs?
Mandalae had been calling out to them since the spell had been broken earlier. Mustafa and Malosa, the two grown males, had roared through the valley, demanding they answer. But just as Astra had been too weak to call the Griffons to the cavern to collect the cubs, so had the cubs been too weak to call back or return to their pride.
Instead, they had found warmth against the dark beings who had so obviously restored their fragile, broken bodies. They sought the warmth of both flesh and of magick and would refuse to budge even if she demanded it.
There had been just enough strength left to secure the entrance against any magick searching the land for the babes, or for the Twins. Just enough to give her a chance perhaps to hide them, or to shield them, should Wizard Twins or Sentinel Warriors find them.
There would be no hope for them, or for Astra herself should, the Select forbid, the enraged dragon Garron find them.
And she had no doubt, nay she knew, there were Sentinel Warriors searching for both the Wizard Twins as well as the cubs.
The cubs to ensure their lives.
The Wizards Delmari to take theirs.
Wrapping her arms across her stomach, she bent over as she sat on the boulder near the fire, trying to hold back the pain and the guilt.
What had she done?
She had betrayed all she loved, all she had fought for since coming to Sellane castle at the age of sixteen. She had betrayed them, and if knowledge of it was learned, then she too would lose her life.
A Sorceress had not betrayed her own in over a millennium.
They had especially not betrayed their own for a hated Wizard Twin.
Especially two suspected to be dabbling in the dark arts and conspiring with the enemy in attacking Covenan and now moving into the lands of the Wizard Twins as well.
She had betrayed her own for Dark Wizards. Oh gods, what manner of weak and unworthy Sorceress had she become?
But Griffons could not bear to be close to dark magick.
The thought drifted through her mind, tearing at her heart as guilt ate into her soul.
Lifting her gaze, she stared at the two sleeping creatures cuddled so close to the Twins and felt her chest tighten at the sight. They curled trustingly against them. As though there were no dark magick inside their souls to torment the young ones.
She couldn’t believe she hadn’t yet sent out a call to the Guardian of the Lands, the princess who commanded them. These two were supposedly responsible for Covenan’s missing heir to the throne of Sellane.
And her queen. Her gentle, compassionate Queen Amoria.
The Wizards Delmari were accused of aiding in the abduction of both the princess and their Queen Amoria. Accused of the most foul, most heinous act of the Princess Selena’s near death and the death of two of their own Wizards. Even now, two of their Sentinel Warriors were held in chains beneath the castle for having conspired with them, and their remaining warriors were locked within their quarters until their own guilt or innocence could be decided.
Astra had run to the room of her princess when the dragon’s roars had rocked the castle and magickal awareness of the crime had been sent throughout the land to every creature of magick that inhabited it. Along with her Queen Amoria, the Princess Selena had been taken from their own castle and these Wizards were accused of having been a part of that abduction.
Two of their warriors had attempted the murder of their own then had aided the Secular attack on Princess Serena, nearly killing her before the abduction.
These Wizards and their brethren alone were responsible. They alone had brought this destruction to Covenan.
And she had known where to find them. Known they were in the Emerald Valley, weak and exhausted, near death. Yet she had refused to acknowledge such a thing to herself. For if she had, then she surely would have betrayed them in her haste to run to them.
Her magick would always know where her natural Consorts hid, she realized. She should have known when she first felt that faint call of the land, pulling her here. The land itself and all magick contained within it would have called out to her to give them aid.
She had known since the day they had flown to the courtyard of Sellane Castle that they would be the cause of her downfall. She had known they would break her heart, that they would sear her soul, and that they alone had the power to destroy her.
And here she had found them, their magick still glowing about the weakened forms of the Griffon babes as they lay, unconscious, their magick spent from repairing the creatures before returning them to their living forms.
The Sorceresses had left the babes as stone, praying to find a way to do just that before returning them from that hardened hell. But none in Covenan had known the spell to repair the damage created by such a dark and perverted power.
She gripped her sword as she felt tears fall from her eyes, felt everything inside her screaming at her to exact justice now. To strike swift and sure while they slept. While they could not strike back or defend themselves with dark magick.
As she struggled to force herself to do as the laws of the land and of magick itself demanded that she do, the eldest, Torran, opened his eyes weakly.
His features were so perfectly hardened and savage, even in sleep, that when his heavy, thick black lashes lifted to reveal eyes the color of the softest spring blue, a cry nearly escaped her lips.
Her tears ran faster, wetting her cheeks, her lips as her breathing hitched and a low, keening sob echoed in her throat. Pain was a shroud of sharpened spikes driving into her defenseless body, piercing her heart, raking her tender soul like the sharpest dagger and ripping through her tender emotions.
Magick lifted from him, the faintest, faintest threads of that gentle, soft blue struggled to lift from his body as his fingers twitched at his side.
Astra gripped the hilt of her sword tighter, fighting to do what she knew her honor demanded.
To strike them before they could strike another whom she loved.