Wraith (The Scarred Mage of Roseward #3) - Sylvia Mercedes Page 0,1

It was even bigger and much wilder.

Nelle drew a long breath. Should she back away? Return to her alcove? Cover her head with blankets and cower, hoping the mage would descend from his tower chamber and do something?

“No bullspitting chance,” she growled and turned the latch.

Immediately, the door blew out of her hand and crashed against the wall. Nelle staggered back several paces, squeezed her eyes shut, and turned her face away, flinging up her hands against the wind that billowed into her face and snarled her hair. A brilliant glare seared through her eyelids, and for a fear-throbbing heartbeat she thought she’d been struck blind.

The next instant, she realized again that this experience wasn’t physical. Her eyes were still whole and fine and fully under her control. With an effort of will, she pried open her eyelids.

“Seven gods preserve us!” she gasped.

Usually, the view from this doorway extended from the lighthouse perched on the cliff shores of Roseward Isle to sweep across the wide and ever-changing Hinter Sea. Under ordinary circumstances, the sight was overwhelming enough to make Nelle’s heart stutter.

This was far, far worse.

A weirdly roiling storm careened across the sky, reflected on the waves below. Although it moved in somewhat the same manner as clouds, it looked more like light somehow made solid. Or fire that didn’t rise in tongues of flame but instead spread out in churning, ever-growing, never-extinguishing masses. Its colors shifted from red to green to violet to colors for which Nelle had neither name nor a place within her mortal reason to comprehend.

She’d glimpsed something like this before—last night, when she’d worked the Rose Book spell to complete the binding of the Thorn Maiden and let her mind partly stray into the quinsatra, the dimension of magic.

She stared, eyes rounding, mouth gaping, as though fully opening herself to the horror bearing down upon her. The quinsatra didn’t belong in this world. And yet . . . and yet . . .

With a whimpering cry, she grabbed the door and tried to slam it shut. The blasts of energy nearly ripped it from her hands again, threatened to fling her off her feet. “No! No!” she screamed. “It’s not real!”

Of course, it was real. Terribly real.

But it wasn’t fully physical. Not yet. And as long as she remembered this, she stood a fighting chance.

By sheer force of will she dragged the door shut and collapsed against it, feeling it rattle in its frame. What a frail, flimsy, foolish barrier it was against that coming onslaught. But it was all she had.

She turned and faced into the room. After that ferocious glare of magic, it seemed darker than before. Panic churned in her gut. It was all she could do to keep from doubling over and being sick on the floor rushes.

Up in the rafters, the wyvern brayed pathetically. She tossed it a quick glance. “You ain’t kidding!”

A clatter of footsteps sounded overhead. Nelle’s gaze shot to the open stairway leading through the high ceiling of the chamber to wind up the lighthouse tower. Mage Silveri was coming.

Her hand almost unconsciously flew to her bosom, feeling the cold contours of a little gold locket resting beneath the thin folds of shirt. She’d fully intended to make use of the poison hidden inside that locket, to smear the last dose of the Sweet Dreams on her lips and take the mage by surprise the moment she saw him. It was, after all, high time she did what she’d come to Roseward to do. The Sweet Dreams would knock Silveri unconscious for many hours, allowing her plenty of time to creep up to his chamber at the top of the tower, find the Rose Book he kept hidden up there, and make her getaway.

But there was no bullspitting way she was going to venture out onto the Hinter Sea now. Not with the whole quinsatra breaking loose overhead.

She lowered her hand and simply leaned against the door. The mage appeared a moment later, rushing headlong down the stairs, clad in tight trousers and a loose, open shirt, his hair wild and white around his shoulders. His eyes watched his feet as he descended the stair a little too fast for safety; only after he leaped over the last three steps and stood on the ground floor did he look up.

He saw her.

His face, already pale other than the recent raw cuts just beginning to heal into puckered scars, drained of color. His eyes widened, and he staggered