Chapter 1
"Focus," he murmured, his breath ghosting over the bare skin of her neck and sending a shiver down her spine.
Isla blew out an irritated breath, watching the fine threads of gold flicker sadly across her palm before disappearing once more.
"If you want me to focus, that's not helping," she grumbled.
Vaelin chuckled softly, pressing a featherlight kiss to her neck. Her breath hitched. "Magic is a living thing,” he murmured. “You can't force it, can't coerce it. You have to work with it — not against it. You have to… feel it."
Her eyelids fluttered shut, the solid heat of him at her back wrapping around her like a well-worn tunic. "You're so annoying," she muttered, turning to look back at him.
Smirking, he hooked her chin with a forefinger and thumb, gently turning her head back to her palm. "Look," he said.
She blinked. Threads of gold danced in her palm, twisting lovingly around her fingers and forearm as they emanated a warm, golden light. A soft, sharp exhale of wonder left her as it always did when she managed to harness the magic she'd never known she possessed.
Vaelin's breath coasted over the shell of her ear. "See? You have to feel it, have to let it in."
The light flickered in her hand like a dying lantern and she felt a twinge of panic.
"No," she whispered, stretching her fingers to their limits as though she might force the slippery threads of magic to stay.
But the more urgently she reached for them, the faster they retreated, until nothing remained but the fair skin of her palm.
She frowned, curling her hand into a fist.
"That was good," Vaelin said, encouragingly.
"No, it wasn't," Isla snapped, frustration burrowing beneath her skin like a sliver.
She had been training with Vaelin and the others, trying to figure out how to use her newfound magic since they'd left the desert sands of Dunovar behind.
Since then, she'd barely managed to evoke the power for more than a few seconds at a time.
It was hard to believe that mere weeks ago she had unleashed enough magic to send the Hollowborne fleeing from the memories of who they had once been before they'd become twisted, broken versions of themselves.
Nightmarish shadow warriors impervious to non-magical weaponry, the Hollowborne were soldiers of The Shattering, the impending, world-ending calamity that nipped at their heels relentlessly as they journeyed the realms to uncover the five memory shards left behind by the ancient fae queen, Etara.
Etara had intended for the shards to uncover a way for future generations to halt the calamity in its tracks, but only if they managed to locate them all before The Shattering came to pass — and succeed where Etara’s people had failed.
As an added bonus, only the Shardseeker, a descendent of Etara’s own bloodline and the keeper of both the key and the power of imprint — perfect memory — could unlock the shards.
By some strange twist of fate, Isla had found herself fulfilling the role of the Shardseeker despite having lived nearly three decades as an unremarkable human in Terravern.
“Isla,” Her chest warmed at the sound of her name curling off Vaelin’s lips, and his hands came to rest lightly on her shoulders. "You are too hard on yourself," he admonished.
She turned to face him and his hands slipped from her shoulders down her arms. She snaked her own hands up the front of his tunic, where they settled on his broad chest. For a moment she stared at her hands, at his chest rising and falling steadily beneath them.
Only weeks ago, she had dragged him from the edge of erasure after he had taken a wound from a Hollowborne shadow blade intended to remove him from this very plane of existence.
She had used an enormous surge of magic to do so, and now, she could summon little more than a whisper of that power.
Vaelin’s large hand covered one of her own.
“It will come,” he murmured.
“Oh Gods, not again,” a low voice groaned through the clearing. “Should I come back?”
Isla looked up to see Evric standing with his arms crossed at the opposite side of the clearing, a bored expression on his chiseled face.
The sunlight filtering through the canopy of leaves overhead sent threads of gold shooting through his red hair, making it look as though flames danced upon his head — fitting, for a firewielder.
“No,” Isla said, stepping back from Vaelin.
He loosened his grip on her slowly, as though reluctant to let her go.
Stooping, she retrieved her sword from where she had leaned it against a tree, sunlight glinting off the silver blade.
“I’m looking forward to doing something I’m good at,” she grumbled.
Evric smirked, “Maybe you’re just too distracted.”
Isla narrowed her eyes at him. “Jealous?”
The firewielder glanced in Vaelin’s direction and shrugged. “Not my type. Too pretty.”
Vaelin scoffed from behind her and Isla’s mouth twitched.
“Enough talk,” Vaelin said, having retrieved his own weapon. He raised an eyebrow at Evric. “Aurelia?”
Evric’s smirk slipped and he shook his head.
A curl of unease passed between them. Aurelia had been fighting her own, silent battle since they had departed The City, still grappling with the newfound knowledge that her fae healing magic had in fact been feeding the illness that ravaged the continent, rather than halting it.
The illness itself, they had learned from the Seers in The City, was one of four harbingers of The Shattering — the earth itself was corrupted, therefore, so too was the fae healers’ earth magic.
While human healing remedies could modestly reduce its symptoms, the only way to truly eradicate the illness was to locate the shards and put an end to the looming calamity.
Each shard unlocked weakened the illness and slowed the progression of The Shattering itself.
Vaelin cleared his throat, “Alright then, let’s go.”
Isla fell into a fighting stance, watching the two fae warriors stalk towards her. The corner of her mouth twitched as a wave of adrenaline rushed through her. This she could do.
They moved like a storm. Evric at her left and Vaelin to right, sunlight glancing off of their blades.
A sudden wind sent gravel and earth spinning through the clearing.
Isla ducked as Vaelin’s sword sang through the air where her head had been moments before, her back turned against the onslaught of the wind as she slashed at his ankle.
He dodged in time — just. She felt the corner of her lip quirk upward.
“No celebrating,” he admonished, but she heard the thread of satisfaction underlying his tone.
She tightened her core muscles, catching her momentum and shifting her weight to other foot as she danced away from Evric’s deadly dual blades, blocking his blows with the flat side of her own sword.
The leather grip bit into her hand, but she was long past the blistering stage.
The calluses she now bore welcomed the feel of the weapon in her hand, as though it had been formed for her palm alone.
A scratch of the earth behind her sent her ducking behind a tree, and she heard Vaelin curse under his breath as his sword glanced off the ancient bark.
No doubt he’d spend hours buffing that scratch out of the blade tonight.
She darted behind another tree, pressing her back flat against the gnarled wood.
“No cheating!” Evric goaded.
Isla allowed herself to pause for a split second, slowing her breathing intentionally.
“It’s called using the environment to your advantage,” she called back.
When no response came, she glanced around the tree trunk, only to curse, throwing herself flat onto the earth as a fireball flew through the woods.
In the next breath, it had winked into a curl of smoke.
She looked up, blowing a loose hair out of her face as she glared at him, the faint smell of singed hair hanging in the air.
“Are you out of your mind? You’re going to set the forest on fire!” she snapped, jumping to her feet and readjusting the grip on her weapon.
Evric rolled his eyes. “You think everyone who engages you is going to default to steel out of kindness?” he asked, quirking an eyebrow. She opened her mouth to respond, but he beat her to it. “What’s your plan if your attacker literally hurls the elements at your head?”
Isla ground her teeth, tightening her grip on her sword, “I’ll block.”
“With what? Your can-do attitude?”
Isla narrowed her eyes, as Vaelin’s poorly hidden chuckle fanned the flames of her irritation. “You are so…”
Evric spun his swords artfully, and tendrils of flame licked up the blades, wrapping around them hungrily. “Handsome? Strong? Hilarious?” he offered.
But Isla was already moving.
She dodged a slash, rotating away to narrowly avoid the flaming tip of his second sword.
Movement in her peripheral vision told her Vaelin was advancing, but she didn’t dare take her eyes off Evric.
She sidestepped, rotating her body as though to aim her own blow at his thigh, changing her arc at the last minute to swipe diagonally upwards instead.
The muscles along her side screamed at the effort as she twisted her torso, catching her weight on her back foot.
Her blade slid across Evric’s forearm, drawing a thin line of blood.
A slight look of surprise flickered across his face, and triumph swelled in her chest.
No celebrating. She dropped to the ground, tucking her shoulder and rolling out of reach just as Vaelin’s blade came crashing down. Instead of Isla meeting the blow, it was Evric who was forced to deflect the longsword, grunting in surprise.
Isla stood slowly, breathing hard where she stood a few paces to the right as the two men turned.
“Huh,” Evric said.
Vaelin looked at her, eyes gleaming and a faint smile on his lips. Her heart flickered in her chest and she tamped down on the heat that bloomed there. Not now.
“Not now,” Vaelin said, as though she’d spoken aloud. Was he talking to her, or to himself? She raised her blade as he advanced.
The three of them sparred for another fifteen minutes, the two fae pressing Isla, forcing her to make split-second decisions and rarely allowing her any respite.
She would never match them, even one-on-one.
They were both, after all, full-blooded fae warriors with more than a century of experience on her.
But she took pride in how she had honed her own skill with a blade these past few weeks, and in the fact that her efforts today had been enough to make both of them sweat through their tunics.
Breath coming heavily, she turned to wipe the sweat from her own brow, catching sight of Aurelia sitting on a rock at the edge of the clearing. The fae’s hair tumbled down her shoulders in waves of gold, her legs crossed as she watched the sparring session as though lost in thought.
“I’m done for today,” Isla called over her shoulder, ignoring Evric’s verbal jabs as she made her way across the clearing.
Aurelia smiled at her, but it didn’t quite reach her ocean blue eyes.
It had been days since the light had danced in the fae’s eyes as it once had, her thoughts seemingly plagued with undeserved guilt.
“You’ve improved,” she noted as Isla approached, nodding approvingly.
Isla smiled. “Well, that’s good, since I’m still useless on the magic side of things.”
Aurelia shrugged, “It’ll come.”
“You sound like Vaelin.”
“Even he’s right sometimes.”
Isla glanced back to where the sound of metal clanging rang through the clearing as Vaelin and Evric resumed sparring.
They had discarded their shirts, despite the crisp, early autumn air.
Evric now wielded a short sword in each hand, flames wrapping around the metal hungrily.
Vaelin still fought with his two-handed longsword, slicing through the air and blocking Evric’s twin blades with apparent ease.
It was a weapon too large and unwieldy for most men, but Vaelin moved with it as though it was no more than an extension of his arm.
“Will you join us soon?” Isla asked carefully.
Aurelia smiled faintly. “Maybe,” she said.
For a moment, they sat in companionable silence, watching the fae men circle one another, volleying hits with expert precision.
Vaelin landed a vicious blow that sent Evric staggering backwards to regain his balance.
Recovering quickly, the firewielder dodged and spun, moving inside the reach of Vaelin’s longsword and slamming the full weight of his shoulder into the other fae’s sternum.
Vaelin flew back, spine crashing against a tree trunk. Isla winced.
She shifted where she sat, deciding to change tack. “Maybe you’d prefer to spar with Drae?”
Aurelia turned her head slowly, eyes slightly narrowed. Isla felt her lip twitch as she teased, “You haven’t exactly been subtle.”
Aurelia raised a delicate eyebrow. “Oh, you want to talk subtlety?” She tilted her head to where the men continued to spar.
Isla followed her gaze, a flush climbing her neck as she watched Vaelin spin, twist, and slash, knocking Evric on his ass.
Vaelin barked a laugh, a rare, full smile carving a deep dimple into one cheek.
He swiped an arm across his brow, pushing damp, dark hair away from his face.
As he turned, the hard muscles of his abdomen shifted, a sheen of sweat catching in the sunlight.
As though he sensed her gaze, he flicked his eyes to hers.
He breathed heavily with the exertion of the fight, but his eyes seemed to burn with something more than adrenaline.
Aurelia laughed softly at her side.
“Whatever,” Isla murmured, dragging her eyes away. She wrapped her arms around her knees, hugging them into her chest. “It’s good to hear you laugh,” she said softly.
Aurelia looked at her squarely, and this time, her smile just touched the corners of her eyes. Isla reached out a hand, and Aurelia took it with a gentle squeeze. She looked back to where Evric and Vaelin continued to volley insults at each other, their words and blades clashing.
“I suppose it’s not a terrible view,” Aurelia allowed.
Isla grinned.