To Charm the Wind: Spells of Air, #2

By M.A. Lee and Remi Black

When Haven isn't a Sanctuary—

 

When the untried wizard Orielle enters the Wilding on her journey to Iscleft Haven, she expects threats from bears and mountain lions, vipers and hornets.

 

She certainly doesn't expect the creatures of legend: wraiths and gobbers, shape-shifting wyre, and the Dark Fae called the Kyrgy.

 

Grim, an outcast from Iscleft Haven, is the keen steel that stands with her against these dangers.

 

Yet when they reach the Haven, the elder arrests Grim. The Haveners aren't interested in a renewed alliance with the Wizard Enclave.

 

Is her mission for the Enclave in vain?

 

Will she ever escape the Wilding?

 

To Charm the Wind is the second #fantasy novella in the series Fae Mark'd World by Remi Black. The #slowburn series trilogy began with To Wield the Wind and ends  with To Curse the Wyre. While the three novellas are strongly connected, each story is complete to itself.

 

Look for additional novels by Remi Black in the Fae Mark'd Wizard series, focused on the wizard Alstera. That series begins with Weave a Wizardry Web.

 

Visit remiblack.blogspot.com for the newest updates.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Writers Ink Books
• Release date: Jan 25, 2021
• ISBN: 9781735491653

Book preview

When Haven isn’t a Sanctuary—

When the untried wizard Orielle enters the Wilding on her journey to Iscleft Haven, she expects threats from bears and mountain lions, vipers and hornets.

She certainly doesn’t expect the creatures of legend: wraiths and gobbers, shape-shifting wyre, and the Dark Fae called the Kyrgy.

Grim, an outcast from Iscleft Haven, is the keen steel that stands with her against these dangers.

Yet when they reach the Haven, the elder arrests Grim. The Haveners aren’t interested in a renewed alliance with the Wizard Enclave.

Is her mission for the Enclave in vain?

Will she ever escape the Wilding?

~ 1 ~

Orielle watched the sentries lead Grim away. Head high, he walked between two burly men with a third leading the way to the gaol the elder had promised that Grim would endure.

The crowd opened as the men approached. No one spoke as Grim and his guards passed through. Then they closed quickly and stared at her, a stranger come to their Haven with Grim.

The pale blue eyes of the elder Tobit gleamed. His broad grin angered her. Now, what about you, pretty lady?

The naming implied she was no more than a play toy. Her wizard trials were a year away, but she’d fought wyre and gobbers in the past days. Fought and defeated them.

I am an emissary for the Wizard Enclave. I cannot begin my mission by antagonizing this elder.

Yet she refused to be anyone’s play toy.

"The last person who called me pretty lady died. I killed his friends, too. They were wyre. Their bodies are at the recent slide by the river’s bend—if the gobbers haven’t feasted on them."

Wyre? the elder questioned as the word rippled through the people. We have no wyre this far south.

You have a lair of wyre and a sorceress who spelled them to shift out of Moon-Turn. We left their bodies by the river. You can look where the slide plunges down to the water. The eldritch green of sorcery will have faded. And the gobbers looked particularly hungry.

We’ll not be inspecting their remains in the dark, he blustered. The elder folded his thick arms over his broad belly. His scowl felt weighty, like a stomp from one of his big feet, planted wide. If the gobbers eat them, we will find nothing but bones in the morning.

True. Orielle didn’t push hard, for she didn’t want the elder erecting an impenetrable stubborn wall at her next point. Can Rho not scan the remains and identify your natural enemy?

Before the burly man could answer, a woman stepped forward. I propose a compromise. We can easily check in the morning, Tobit. And our scouts can identify the bones of the wyre.

The elder’s scowl pressed on the woman, but she didn’t bow beneath it. Silver-haired and bony beside his bulk, she opened a door for his escape from the blind alley that his blustering had driven him into.

A compromise. Orielle seized it, for she’d seen her own blind alley. May I ask to attend Grim’s hearing?

That’s only for the people of this Haven. You have no place here.

A stir behind her, then Grim’s friend Brok stepped beside her. She’s under my protection, Tobit. You heard Grim.

He has no voice in our Haven. He abandoned us two years ago.

Even so. She’s under my protection.

Do you even know her name?

Orielle winced. Who had had time for introductions? Then she lifted her voice and stirred the Air to carry her words, wanting everyone to hear, not just the people at the fore of the crowd. Greetings, Elder Tobit of Iscleft Haven, from the Wizard Enclave in Mont Nouris.

The air changed. A feral tang burdened it, those few words waking anger.

She could not tell the source of the anger, so she continued with the formal greeting she had rehearsed every day for the past weeks of her journey from Tres Lucerna, across the border of Mont Nouris, through the Lowlands, and into the Wilding to reach the Haven. I am Orielle of Clan Galfrons, sent by the ArchClan to renew the alliance between wizards and Rhoghieri. Frost Clime threatens all of us. Her own spurt of anger compelled her to add, which you will discover when you examine the wyre that Grim and I killed at the river’s bend.

Murmurs rose from the crowd. Support or dissent, she couldn’t tell. She hoped no one threw a rock.

Tobit’s scowl increased. You’re Enclave. Two words, heavy as boulders.

If he’d said wizard, she would have had to lie. That was never wise. Enclave and friend.

Wizards don’t make friends with Rho.

"I am friend with a Rho. I think I offered you alliance."

The retort drew laughter and removed that wild tang of hostility. A whiff of it remained, but diffused.

She’s honest, someone called. The crowd’s mood shifted more, a palpable lightening of the heavy rancor.

You going to enslave us to the Wizard Enclave, Tobit?

The shout drew more laughter.

Tobit chose to laugh, but humor didn’t glitter in his close-spaced eyes. Not tonight, he shouted back.

People trickled away from the crowd, mothers with children on their hips, men with tools still in hand, youths with better interests than an Enclave visitor who didn’t want to spark trouble when she came begging for Rhoghieri help.

And Orielle hadn’t drawn the crowd. Grim had. His return had drawn the Haveners to him like the compass north drew a thin metal needle.

Prove it, Tobit demanded. And the people who had slipped away came back, eager for any excitement to break up the monotony of days.

I beg your pardon? She hoped she had misheard.

A polite wizard? I didn’t know such a thing existed! He relished the rippling laughter that time. Prove it. You say you’re Enclave. Wizards are proud of their spells. Show us one.

Are you certain? she asked as she scrambled through the spells she relied on.

Afraid we won’t be impressed, wizard?

I am a guest. I would not overstep.

Tobit swept his hands expansively. You wouldn’t endanger us. That’s against the Wizard Tenets. Unless the uppity Enclave has changed in the last decades. Show us the element you wield. Show my people a reason to ally with the Enclave against the sorcerers and the wyre who threaten the Iscleft Citadel and Mont Nouris.

And this Haven, she reminded, for Grim and I killed seven of the pack. Six remain.

The hostility returned, pressing, as if the very Air had stony weight.

Tobit smiled still. His eyes still looked flat and hard. How many did he fool with that guise of humor? We will wait. This Enclave wizard must need hours to access enough power for a single spell.

Orielle held out her hand, palm up. Power sparkled, a swirling vortex that danced in the heart of her palm before jumping from fingertip to fingertip. A simple spell, her first, learned when her power quickened. Prettiness rather than usefulness.

Tobit guffawed. Child’s play. You fought a wyre with that sweet sparkly spell, pretty lady? You’re lying. No wizard spell can fight the wyre, let alone kill them. The least of us know that.

The taunt ran fire through her. Grim had reminded her that wizardry couldn’t fight the shape-shifting wyre. Her brother Saithe, a great wizard, had died for that reason. He defended against a wyre attack with magic rather than elemental power. Grief had shaken her when Grim gave her that news. Yet Saithe’s death had helped the warning to stick. Without it, she would have died when she made her own mistake with magic as she fought her first wyre.

Anger sizzled through her at Tobit’s taunt. She shoved it down then tilted her head. She gave her most charming smile, well practiced in the courts of Tres Lucerna. Oh. You want to know how I killed the wyre. You should have asked that. I used something like this. With rocks. She spun the vortex into a tight spiral. As it lengthened, it jumped from her hand to the paving stones of the well square, gathering grit and dust into its whirl. She shoved it at the elder.

The spell blasted him with gusty force. Tobit leaned into the wind. The power rippled over his flesh. His grizzled hair and beard streamed behind him. Then the wind rushed past him and leapt into the sky, tugging at pennants and laundry, snagging chimney smoke, and dissipating into the cold blue sky.

Tobit tilted back his head and roared with laughter. Several of the crowd joined him. Lips pursed, the white-haired woman beside him merely drew her hand down her long braid. Her gaze darted around the crowd to judge Tobit’s mocking laughter then returned to Orielle.

When he’d laughed enough, the elder pointed at Orielle. Prepare was his only warning. He clapped his hands together.

A boom shuddered under her feet. Orielle staggered.

Brok grabbed her arm and hauled her back. The ground where she’d stood had cracked open.

Is this a battle then? Brok shouted while she gaped at the cracked ground. You wanted proof of the lady’s wizardry. You’ve given a taste of your power. I’d say we’re done here.

Far from done, Tobit declared.

No.

A single word, spoken rather than shouted, but weighted like a boulder. It came from her left.

A gnarled staff leading his way, a man stepped from the crowd. He lacked the bulk that grounded the elder but shared the big man’s grizzled hair and beard. No, he repeated. "The lady wizard is a guest. We’ll not have a battle on her first evening with us. She fought