Book 3
November 2025
Buy link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DXN289NV
A whisper campaign threatens Vanda Kavanagh’s hardwon position as Warden of Caldryn Parliament, but are the malicious rumors a personal attack or do they mask an uglier plot?
As Vanda investigates, long-hidden truths are revealed leading her to question everything she believed about herself.
In a city steeped in magic and political intrigue who can Vanda trust?
Excerpt
Chapter One
It had finally stopped raining and late afternoon sunlight filtered through the blurtech privacy windows of River Lodge, the official residence of the President of the Realm. The pale light danced over the multi-colored fur of the diminutive gremlin posing on the President’s desk.
Giddy tilted its head adorably.
The photographer cooed. “You are so cute, yes, you are.”
Kitten-sized and literally magical, Giddy flirted shamelessly with the man and his camera.
Amused, Vanda Kavanagh, the Warden of Caldryn Parliament, watched her life-bonded partner steal the spotlight.
The photographer had already recorded President Yani Mescalero officially celebrating Vanda’s appointment as Warden with a staged conversation across his desk. The President’s opulent office was as much a setting for publicity shots as it was a work space.
Reluctantly, the photographer tore his attention from Giddy to capture additional celebrity shots of the people who’d gathered to witness the event.
President Mescalero could have held the minor ceremony before the Spring Term started, but his staff had waited to schedule it until they were confident regarding Vanda’s performance as Warden.
A president didn’t gain and maintain power by associating with losers.
“Of course she’s ambitious.”
Vanda’s attention snapped to the three men standing beneath a painting of President Mescalero’s immediate predecessor.
The men stared at her; two sidelong and one in outright challenge.
“Overweening ambition has destroyed many,” the one glaring at her said.
Vanda couldn’t have stopped her smile for all the gold in the Realm, but she turned her head aside and down, directing her smile at her elegant gray shoes. They matched her light gray, spring frock. On returning to Forum City she’d put herself in the hands of one of the Realm’s premier tailors, and her wardrobe proved the value of that trust and investment.
An ambitious person had to care about their appearance.
Her choice of gray as her signature color was a subtle promise and a dare. Just like the tailored clothing she wore as Warden, her wardenship would be dangerously unadorned.
Purposefully, the stark silhouette of today’s dress gave its wearer nowhere to hide. The sophisticated, nearly sculptural utility of the design showcased her confident, purposeful carriage and the lean athleticism of her body.
Hearing herself attacked as “ambitious” gave her both a thrill of victory and a sense of launching off the starting block in a footrace.
She had rivals and enemies to defeat. Some were personal, others she’d inherited. It was the ones she didn’t know about who worried her the most. Hence, her “ambitious” strategy. She needed a way of channeling their attacks. Better yet, she needed a strategy that lured her enemies into revealing themselves.
They couldn’t challenge her as incompetent, unprepared, or incapable. She’d proven herself as a wardkeeper and was holding her ground as the Warden. So, it seemed that they were flipping the script. They were attacking her for being too good at her job, too ambitious.
Exactly as she’d planned.
She tamed her gleeful grin and smiled demurely at the three gossiping men.
They weren’t her enemy. They were merely mouthpieces.
All the best rumors held a kernel of truth.
Vanda was ambitious. What she hoped to disguise for a while longer was that her ambition was for the wardenship and not for herself.
She intended to restore the Warden’s independence, but not in some flimsy, flaunting way. Her immediate predecessors had focused on the ceremonial aspect of the wardenship and restricted their wardkeeping duties. Of the seven layers of the parliamentary wards, only one had been active at the time of her appointment. Since then Vanda had activated two more. She was hesitating on the fourth.
If observers were distracted by rumors of her ambition she might be able to work through the complications of reactivating the remaining layers of the parliamentary wards without outside interference.
It’s good to dream, she thought wryly. But not now!
When you’re surrounded by predators, you had to stay alert.
Vanda had grown up in an elite wardkeeping family and attended the Caldryn Girls’ School for Magic. In playing the social games of survival she’d learned that malice glittered and smiles lied.
Later, as a university student, she’d haunted Caldryn Parliament. The wards had attracted her, but while studying them she’d also absorbed, almost by osmosis, political experience and instincts. Those were being tested now.
The trio of gossiping men weren’t the problem.
Circulating through the crowd, moving with conscious dignity, was Vanda’s grandmother.
Evelyn Kavanagh was the matriarch of the Kavanagh family, and had attended the presidential recognition of Vanda’s wardenship in that role. Evelyn was no doting granny.
Her suit was a bold choice of navy-blue flowers heavily splashed against a cream background and cut to showcase her corseted-to-slimness figure. As always, her silver hair was immaculately styled and hair-sprayed into obedience.
Her lips might be curled in a slight and meaningless smile, but her eyes had narrowed on the three men who continued to discuss her granddaughter, and snigger.
Vanda recognized Evelyn’s expression.
It promised retribution. Usually, Evelyn directed it at family members when a miscreant misbehaved at an event that was too public for the offender to be upbraided at the time. The scolding would happen in due course.
The three men would learn that while Evelyn could criticize her granddaughter, outsiders were not permitted the same freedom. Evelyn kept an account of grudges as well as favors.
“Warden Kavanagh. Vanda!”
Vanda winced.
The man who’d barked her name was too close for the volume of his shout.
Giddy leapt off the President’s desk, levitated across the space between them, and landed on her shoulder. Together, they glared at the shouting man.
He retreated two steps. Annoyance tightened his expression as he recognized his retreat. He glanced around to check how many people had witnessed him shrinking away.
About half the room had looked over at his peremptory demand for her attention. They’d all seen him flinch at Giddy’s arrival.
Embarrassed, his head snapped up and he took a giant step forward to reclaim his space and bravado. Shoulders back, feet spread wide, he adjusted his whole posture to radiate his right to Vanda’s attention. “What are your plans for the wardenship, Vanda? You ousted your cousin to claim it. One candidate withdrew rather than be appointed your apprentice. The second candidate resigned. Two of the parliamentary wardkeepers have tendered their resignations. How many more will fall victim to your rise to power?”
“My rise to power?” she echoed.