Page 154 of The Demon Tide

Tierney flashes him a suggestive glance. “I just might take you up on that. I rather like the look you’re giving me.” She slides the Xishlon’lure into her pocket, shoots him an affectionate smile, then steps away, climbing deftly over the stone railing that abuts the tributary’s bank.

“Where are you going?” he asks, completely under her spell. Wishing he could spend the whole purple night with her.

Tierney frowns toward the Vo Mountains. “To the Vo Forest. My kelpies unearthed something curious there.” She nods toward the Wyvernguard soldier who just arrived to take her place on the stream’s other side. “My watch just ended, so I think I’ll take a look. They’re sending me confusing images through the water, and I don’t know what to make of it.”

“Images of what?”

Tierney shakes her head, as if trying to puzzle it out. “A small, stagnant pool. There’s nothing out of the ordinary about this image—that’s what’s confusing me. The forest is full of death as well as life. It’s the natural way of things.”

Or’myr raises a brow. “You sound like a Death Fae.”

Tierney smiles a bit at this. “I suppose I do.”

“So...you’re going to spend the evening investigating a stagnant pool of water?” His lip quirks in spite of how much he’s pining for her. “And I thought I was going to have the least romantic Xishlonof anyone.”

“No, I win,” Tierney rejoins. She gives him one last rueful look. “Except for being with you for a moment, Or’myr. I like you, and I don’t regret kissing you. Maybe someday we’ll find a way to try that kiss again.”

And then she dives straight into the stream, dissolving into the water, her sparkling blue form flowing out toward her kindred river, on her way to the forest beyond.

Or’myr watches until her shimmering outline disappears from sight, his gaze traveling toward the Vo Mountains, residual lightning crackling through his lines. He closes his eyes, struggling to gather his Xishlon-scattered wits. Then he pulls in a deep breath and resumes his trek back toward his rune skiff, wondering the whole time what Tierney’s kelpies have unearthed out there.

CHAPTER TWO

VOIDFOREST

Tierney Calix

Xishlon night, twenty-first hour

Tierney glances at the purple moon from where she kneels, her hand in the small forest pool, the deep plum of the trees dappled with the Xishlon moon’s bright violet light.

Even though he makes no sound arriving, she can sense Viger’s Death Fae presence, her skin prickling from his aura’s low vibration. She wondered when he’d eventually show himself, remembering his promise to find her on Xishlon and show her how Vogel’s Shadow could be athreat to Death.

But right now she has more immediate concerns as she concentrates on the water swirling over her hand, because it’s allwrong. Barely perceptible tendrils of dark smoke curl up from the curiously inky puddle, everything in it dead.

Apprehension ripples through Tierney. It’s the same Shadow corruption she’s sensed before. But those times, the subtle trace of gray magic was both fleeting and distant. Now, here the Shadow is again. So curiously isolated. To this tiny, stagnant pool.

She can sense the river striving to wall it off. To deposit as much silt as possible to separate it from its source stream.

What are you seeding here, Vogel? Why is it scaring my river?

Tierney glances over her shoulder toward Viger, who has materialized from black mist, his pale face staring at her from just inside the forest’s shadows. A small thrill runs through her magic at the sight of him, as it always does, both the sizzle of fear and her unsettling draw to him commingled. A brief spike of conflict rises to be noticing Viger this way with the sting of Or’myr’s violet lightning still on her lips...

She meets Viger’s dark stare, some of the conflict subsiding as she loses herself to the feel of his otherworldly draw, his gaze on her a dark, probing force. It’s as if he can look right through her to pick apart her every secret corner.

And those raven eyes...

Get hold of yourself, Asrai, she chastises herself.You’re feeling the effects of that blasted moon. Are you planning on claimingallof the dangerous young men of the East as your Xishlon’virs? There are more important things to attend to this night than swooning over every young man who crosses your path.

She meets Viger’s gaze, his dark form still and motionless in the shadows. “I’m glad you’ve come,” she says, refusing to be unnerved by his eerily seductive presence. “There’s something very wrong.” She pulls her hand from the pool and motions him forward, brow tight with concern. “Viger...tell me if you can sense what’s been done to this water. Because this tiny puddle scared my kelpies.”

Viger strides to her, lowers his long frame, then places his chalk-white hand into the water, and closes his eyes.

Tierney scrutinizes him, his severe, hard-planed face so compelling. All three of the Wyvernguard’s Death Fae have his same morbid elegance—powerful Viger, spider-shifter Sylla, and mysterious, refined Vesper.

Viger opens his eyes, pulling his hand from the water. “This is not the clean death of the natural world,” he states with a tight frown. “This is something twisted.” He rubs the blackened water between his fingertips, dark claws forming.

A sizable bat flies out of the forest and lands on his shoulder. Not the cute dog-faced fruit-loving kind, Tierney notes. The bloodsucking kind. Viger tilts his head up, and a flock of ravens descends on the branches surrounding them, rustling the violet leaves. Closing his eyes, he whispers to the ravens in a language that seems to emanate from deep inside his throat. Tierney can feel its low vibration straight through her body. “Vialyrr,” he tells them, and all the ravens and the bat take wing.

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