Chapter 4

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.