Page 51 of The Shadow Wand

Every dark thing exposed.

Like a relief, Tierney can’t help but consider. A cursed relief.

And, possibly, an essential preparation for Vogel’s advance on the Eastern Realm.

“You don’t fully understand what’s coming,” Tierney says to Fyordin, dread rising. “If you did, you wouldn’t be wasting your time fighting our allies, imperfect though they may be.” She moves closer to him, adamant, holding his equally fierce stare. “We need to fight this thing together. Every last one of us. Or Vogel’s nightmare is going to devour us all.”

Their mutual storms of emotion rise, their power lashing against each other’s with unbridled force.

Tierney wrenches her gaze from Fyordin’s, suddenly needing to be away from him. Needing to be away from Viger Maul. Needing to be away from everything but the river.

Fyordin remains silent as she grabs hold of the terrace’s railing, hoists her body up until she’s balanced on top of it, then raises her arms and dives straight into the Vo.

As her body hits the cool water, she doesn’t angle up to skim along the underside of its surface like she did last night as the waves of the river frolicked over her, welcoming her home.

No.

She swims straight down like an arrow, into the deepest black. Until she touches down on the river’s great bed, the weight of the Vo a soothing pressure as her Asrai body strengthens against it.

She lies back and splays her arms on the riverbed’s soft ground.

Erthia.

Tierney breathes in the clean river water, pulling it deep into her lungs as she’s filled with the glorious sense of all the life thriving there—life independent of the Wyvernguard, the Noi lands. The river flows into her with every breath, connected to her now like some mammoth network of veins feeding into her own. And for the brief sliver of a moment, as her body morphs into water and unravels into beautiful chaos, Tierney considers staying there for good.

But then she feels it.

A disturbance at the outer reaches of the water that feeds into the Vo. One small point of contact reverberating out, almost imperceptible.

A faraway tendril of shadow, seeping into the water.

Slow and curling.

Life draws away from that point of contagion, plants flexing back, insects scuttling for land, fish darting for cleaner waters.

Every sense sharpening, Tierney draws herself back into corporeal form in a single snap of power.

She stills and listens to the water.

An image of a dead tree shivers to life in the back of her mind as she remembers, all too vividly, what Elloren told her of Vogel’s shadowy tree and his heightened, unnatural power.

The dead forest.

She remembers, in another unsettling flash, where she encountered this Shadow power before—the night Alfsigr Marfoir assassin creatures came for Wynter.

Tierney recalls the Marfoir’s rune markings, wrought from Shadow magic with the same unnatural, polluting feel as the Shadow that’s begun to invade the Vo.

For a long moment, Tierney remains completely still at the bottom of the vast waters, the Vo flowing rippling images over her, piece by piece.

And then, the Vo grows quiet, focusing in on one thing and one thing alone—that touch of Shadow, making first contact with its single, slender tributary.

The threat to the river coalesces inside Tierney’s mind, and everything inside her rears up to meet it, courage welling to overtake all fear.

I’ll fight for you, Tierney vows to the river all around her, fists clenching.I’ll defend you against this Shadow power. I’ll protect you from Vogel and the Gardnerians and the Alfsigr.

Her power whirlpools inside her as love for the river gains ground.

I won’t let them poison your waters.

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