The Turquoise Tower (Revenant Wyrd Book 6) by Travis Simmons

it’s all we have to go with now.”
    “No, not us. Me. You aren’t part of this.” Mag turned back to Astanel. She kneeled on the floor before him and took his hands into hers. “You have to promise me you won’t let anyone know what you are.”
    “Sara and Annbell know.”
    “Yes, but they trust me, and they know that you can change. They have faith that you are willing to change.” Mag studied his silvery blue eyes, looking for confirmation that she was right and he was willing to change. “Don’t touch your wyrd, not until we’re in Lytoria. Then, at the height of battle, come to me. It’s then you will use your darklight to get these trappings off me, and then we attack.”

    Sara stared out at the moon, rising high above the peaks and domes of the buildings in the Ivory City. It made her homesick; she missed watching the moon from the serenity of her own keep, far from people and high in the mountains where she was surrounded by nothing but nature. Here there was too much noise, too many people. But here she was, gathered with the other Guardians in Aladestra’s personal conference room, trying to determine the fate of a woman she trusted and loved more than she did the people in this very room.
    “The point is, she’s a danger,” Azra Akeed said.
    “To call her a danger is to bring into question my ability to govern,” Sara spoke quietly from the window. Her words cut through the room like a well-tempered blade. She turned back to the purple room, lit with soft lamplight. It was a large room, affording a lot of space to relax, but the Guardians were all gathered around the green marble table in the center of the room.
    “No one is doing that,” Aladestra said, placing her hand on Azra’s arm to calm the other Guardian.
    They were split. Rowan and Azra wanted Mag dead, while Sara and Pyang knew Mag and believed she wasn’t a danger. They both wanted her to live. Aladestra, as usual, was the mediator.
    “So where do we stand?” Pyang asked.
    “She attacked the capital city,” Rowan argued for the umpteenth time.
    “No, you know as well as I do that there was no alarist wyrd in that weaving,” Sara said, refusing to sit. She felt standing gave her some kind of advantage, even if that wasn’t true.
    “I didn’t feel it either, not until it was too late.” Pyang nodded agreement.
    “And unless she is skilled enough to hide her working from five Realm Guardians, I doubt it was intentional.” Sara leaned against the back of her chair.
    “How did you even come to have her in your council?” Aladestra asked.
    “She was an alarist, back when Arael was in power before. We had captured her and were trying her. She was one of the few who expressed interest in devoting herself back to the Goddess. We gave her that chance,” Sara said simply. “She’s never made me question her faith. She’s defended me even when it would benefit an alarist not to. It was she who found I was being poisoned not too long ago, and it was she who dealt with the threat. She successfully ran our campaign against the chaos dwarves.”
    “And she’s never used her darklight power?” Rowan asked.
    “Only once that I know of,” Sara said. “When we were fighting the chaos dwarves an alarist came through the courtyard and was attacking the keep with his darklight. We were all trapped. The only way we defeated him was through Mag’s connection to her alarist power. Maybe that one working after so long opened up some kind of channel she’s having a hard time closing.”
    “Maybe she doesn’t want to close it,” Rowan speculated. “Maybe all of her good deeds were a way to gain your trust so she can deceive us in the end.”
    Sara wanted to argue, but she couldn’t. She’d often heard Mag refer to the darklight power as being addictive, like a drug. Could it be that she was slipping back into that addiction?
    “Biding her time, waiting for the opportune time to strike.” Azra nodded in agreement.
    “Oh,