Page 2 of Silvercloak

Joran ushered their daughter into the corner of the room. The pantry was enchanted to conceal any Killoran hidden inside, making them invisible and inaudible to anyone but another Killoran.

For once, Mellora was glad her genius husbandwastedhis time tinkering with their home. It might just be the thing that saved their daughter’s life.

As the pantry clicked shut, the front door slammed open, hanging loose and frightened from its hinges. Slowly the color—the magic—seeped out of the wood, until it was once more a plain brown teak. A few inches below the silver fallowwolf knocker, the imprint of an opening spell faded slowly.

Two hulking figures stepped over the threshold, cast in a wedge of fading daylight. Their cloaks were a deep scarlet, pinned at their throats with round ruby brooches, the moon phases embroidered down the lapels in black and gold thread. Everything else was black—the knee-high boots with gold buckles, the neatly laced tunics, the billowing breeches, the look of death in their eyes.

Mellora’s stomach clenched like a fist.

Bloodmoons.

She took a few protective steps in front of her husband.

“Can we help you?” Joran said, the words cragged and uneven.

“We need a necromancer,” said the shorter of the two men. He had a low, heavy brow and a scratchy voice. He twitched with a kind of fraught energy—whatever order they’d been given, haste was of the essence. And there was nothing so dangerous as desperation when it came to the Bloodmoons.

Joran squared his shoulders. “You won’t find one here.”

“Won’t we?” The taller mage narrowed his gray eyes, a kind of rapacious hunger pulling his lips wide.

They both stared straight at Mellora.

Everything inside her seized with fear. She considered casting a desperatepraegeloscharm, to buy herself precious thinking space, and yet what good would thinking do when the devil was already upon them? The only thing that could save them now was the teleportation spell, and such a thing had been outlawed long ago.

Joran glanced back at her in confusion. “Mellora?” His knuckles were white as he gripped his wand. “My wife is a Healer. Easy enough to prove.” He lifted his wand to his palm and made a slicing motion. “Sen incisuren.”

A cut opened—too deep,worried Mellora,he’s gone too deep—and bloomed dark red. He didn’t so much as wince.

Mellora raised her sleek willow wand and muttered, as she had a thousand times before, “Ans mederan.”

Heal.

Though her well of magic had been scantly replenished by a few sips of honeywine, the wound inelegantly knotted itself back together. It would scar, if they lived long enough.

The Bloodmoons stared disdainfully at Joran’s hand.

“Either you know as well as we do that necromancy is a sub-class of healing,” said the tall viper, “or you’re entirely as moronic as you appear.”

Joran’s pale cheeks heated with anger, and Mellora silently willed him to not throw bait at the feet of wolves, yet she couldn’t quite convince her mouth to form words, to urge him to keep his head.

True to form, he did not heed her wordless plea. He only lifted his wand.

But the Bloodmoon lifted his faster.

“Sen ammorten.”

The killing spell landed true on Joran’s chest, and he fell to the ground like a sack of bezoars.

Mellora let out a strangled cry, feeling the expectant weight of the intruders’ gazes upon her. They knew what she would do next, and so did she.

Because she could not let Joran, herJoran,die at her feet.

After decades of running and rigging enchanted gamehouses, the Bloodmoons were experts at forcing players to show their hands.

The strand linking Mellora’s mind to her body snapped.

She moved without thought, sinking onto her haunches and tearing open the fabric of Joran’s tunic. There was a star-shaped scar over his heart where the spell had struck, and when she laid a palm over it, it was ice cold to the touch, like liquid silver. Magical death had a unique scent to it—not blood and rot, but smoke and ash and something honey-sweet.

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