Morgan glanced toward the journal resting beside her mother’s bracelet, the journal where she had poured out her heart. Rowan was a powerful Fire Wizard, and the father of her child. He was respected. Honored. Feared. He didn’t know he’d fathered their son. The law was as old as time, and she had honored its teachings. Male Wizards were not to know the identity of their children. A male Wizard’s only allegiance was to the Grey Council and the Talons. Despite the law, she still regretted not telling him.
“I can’t…”
Caitlin rested her hand on Morgan’s shoulder. “You must. Our sisters are dying.”
Morgan shrugged away from Caitlin and fastened a bracelet made from freshwater pearls. “When the Grey Council takes our boys to foster when they are four or five and our girls after thestart of their first flow, the pain is unbearable. Our hearts simply cease to beat. I told you before. I am too old for your rebellion.”
“Some say the older a female Wizard grows, the more wise and powerful she becomes.”
“Myth.”
“Or a truth,” Caitlin said, “suppressed by those who fear our potential. Female Water Wizards thrive on change, abundance, and laughter. We are fluid, adventurous, and as free-flowing as a mountain-fed stream. We also have great power. Have you forgotten the children’s poem?Starve the fire and burn the wind. Steal the earth and boil the seas. Ashes, Ashes, they all fall down.It was thought inspired by the Black Death in Europe and considered a cautionary tale. We are stronger if we work together. Separated, we fail.”
Morgan spun to face Caitlin. “It is too late for children’s poems. We have already failed. I reject your description of our power. We are not fluid. We are stagnating, dying, relics of the past.”
Caitlin motioned over her shoulder. “Is that why you have taken this human male to your bed? You want to feel alive again?”
“A distraction.”
“A rebellion. Wizards are forbidden to join with humans. More to the point, does your human realize he is only a distraction? That you are using him to forget…”
“You go too far,” Morgan interrupted, hands clenched.
“Such passion,” Caitlin said, but her voice was as cold as ice. “It is about time it resurfaced. The Talons and the Grey Council set boundaries around us in the name of protection. Instead of prolonging our lives, they grow shorter with each generation. Do you really believe it is a coincidence we die so young while they live on and on and…”
Morgan stood, toppling over her chair as she headed toward the French doors on the opposite side of the room. She threw the doors open, exposing an inner courtyard that this time of year should have been bursting with signs of spring. But the cherry trees were bare, and the gardens were dry and cracked. Drought and the lack of sun had delayed the season. Again.
Two young female Wizardlings, Anne and Deidre, five and eight years old, played along the garden path. As part of their gift as Water Wizards, they sensed that the gardens needed water and had created tiny rivulets of rivers and ponds where they played with their small boats and tiny figurines. The streams pushed and shoved their way through the dry earth, dissolving and reshaping as they gained momentum and strength. The sight only darkened Morgan’s mood. There was a time when she was like those young girls. No worries. No cares. Full of hope and possibility.
Morgan felt as though her heart had stopped beating. Her son was about the same age as the younger of the two Wizardlings when he had been taken from her. She pressed against her chest with one hand and held onto the railing with the other as thoughts of her son crashed against her. It was tradition for children of high-ranking female Wizards to be taken from their mothers and fostered. There was not a day that went by that she did not think of him. She wanted to believe that he was well cared for by the leadership. But what if that were not true?
She rubbed her temples, and when Caitlin joined her, Morgan pressed harder, moving near the railing. Her headaches had grown more frequent of late. Headaches were the first indication that a female Water Wizard’s time on this earth neared its end. Most looked forward to the ten days of festivals leading up to Bealtaine on the first day of May. She alternatedbetween dread and fear. “Leave me alone. I grow weary of your threats of impending doom.”
“I do not warn of a possible threat, but one that is already upon us. We’ve learned that the human leadership, who still call themselves the Talons, have formed an unholy alliance with the Grey Council. I’m not sure how the Talons managed it, but they convinced our leadership to turn over the training of our Wizardlings to them.”
Morgan’s temper simmered beneath the surface as she watched the young Wizardlings in the garden, laughing and playing as though the world was a safe place. In the beginning times, after a millennium of wars between humans and the magical community, a truce had been formed in the hope of achieving a lasting peace. Humans chose the name Talons, after the name of one of their founding leaders. But until recently, there had been a clear separation of powers.
She turned on Caitlin. “Humans training Wizards violates our laws.”
“As does murdering female Wizards before their time.”
“Caitlin, please. That is but a conspiracy. I am not convinced it is true.”
“As the Latin proverb states, forewarned is forearmed.” Caitlin nodded toward the children. “A few of us intend to take them from the island as soon as the festival is under way. All we ask is that you and those who remain keep the men distracted. If we fail, Anne and Deidre will need you. They all will.”
“They will have to rely on someone else.”
“There won’t be anyone else.”
Chapter Two
Storm clouds raged overhead, laced with veins of ebony and crimson, resembling an angry forest fire or a blood-soaked battlefield.
“Bad idea,” Rowan said under his breath as he flew his twin-engine float plane over the Grand Vizier’s private landing strip toward the public terminal on Galliano, a small island in the Canadian San Juans. He’d witnessed float planes brave the seas and winds with mixed results.
But this wasn’t an ordinary storm. It was Wizard-made: Air Wizard, to be precise. If not for the two passengers who’d hitched a ride, and for the order he’d received to be on the island to investigate the recent murder, he’d turn around. For some reason, the Air Wizards were in a bad mood.
Maybe it was because they had been banned from this weekend’s annual Fertility Festival. He’d heard that Constantine, the president of the Talons. had accused them of creating a hurricane that had destroyed his beachfront property in Florida. They’d denied the allegations, but it fell on deaf ears.
