Chapter 3

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.