Page 215 of The Demon Tide

I look to half-Kelt Yvan and we share a brief look of surprise.

Hazel’s damning gaze sweeps back to Oaklyyn, and I sense this is a long-standing source of resentment between them. “But instead of helping the Mages, the Dryads used their combined magic to leech away the Mages’ connection to the Forest.” He levels his stare back at me, his words loaded with import when they come. “The Dryadin cut your people off from the trees just when you needed them the most.”

“What would you have had us do?” Oaklyyn rages, her green face tight with fury. “We were beingdecimatedby the Kelts!” She sweeps her arm toward me in a wide, angry arc. “If we had accepted all of the Kelts’ bastard offspring, our magic would have beendestroyedwithin a few generations. Our branch magic watered down to the point where we’d need to layer dead wood in Magewands—”

“And where has the quest for magical purity gotten you?” Hazel snaps, the air vibrating with a sudden darkness that further dims the light. “Where?Where has it gottenanyone?”

“You’d have us die!” Oaklyyn shoots back.

The fog of darkness intensifies, a pained look slashing through Hazel’s eyes. “No, Oaklyyn. I’d have youlive!”

“Oh.” Oaklyyn coughs out a scornful laugh. “The primordialDeath Faeis going to help the Dryads to live?”

I look to Hazel in surprise. “You’re a Death Fae?” I remember Trystan telling me of his friendship with some of these mysterious Fae—Fae who had the highest of bounties placed on their heads during the first Realm War.

Hazel turns slowly toward me, another mirthless smile forming on his lips. “I’ve forbidden ancestry like you, Mageling.” His words seem to drip acid. He looks to Yvan. “And you as well, Icaral. My mother was a Death Fae. My father, Dryadin.” He grows quiet, loses his cold grin, and looks at the ground. Pulling in a deep breath, he pushes his shoulders back, as if drawing on the earth at his feet. Snakes suddenly slither out of the ground and coil around his legs, then up around his body, his neck and shoulders.

Hazel’s voice is becalmed when it comes, almost mournful. “Death is the seed that enables the Forest to live.” He raises his head and looks at Oaklyyn, his voice low and final when it comes. “The Circle is expanding. The Forest has deemed it so. Whether you want it to or not.”

“But the witch Mage has no kindred,” Flora puts in, splaying her dark green hand out toward me, a conflicted look on her delicate visage. A fog-hued heron hugs her side. “How can she be Guardian,” she presses, “with no kindred called to her?”

“III haswardedher,” Sylvan counters. “Which means a kindredwillmanifest within moments.” His tone is rock-solid sure, but when he looks to me, I see conflict in his pine eyes.

“What of the Prophecy, Sylvan?” the lightning-bolt-marked soldier cuts in as she slices a hand toward Yvan and me, her silver-furred panther slinking around her legs. “The trees have foretold of the Black Witch’s war with the Great Icaral.” She gives Yvan a hard look. “She is prophesied to bring you down.”

“Do they look ready to cut each other down, Lyptus?” Sylvan bites out.

Yvan’s wings stiffen. “I don’t believe in your prophecy,” he says, his flame surging around me with rebellious heat. “I love Elloren.”

His fiery declaration sears through my battered heart, the yearning running through his fire so deep it prompts a pained flare of my emotion and affinity power.

Oaklyyn is gaping at Yvan, like he’s uttered the most heinous of blasphemies. Her wolverine bristles and bares its teeth. “This is impossible!” she insists, pointing her staff at me. “She’s ensorcelled both the Icaral and III in some way!” She swings her staff toward Sylvan, leveling it like an accusatory finger. “It will be the death of our Forest if welet her live!”

“Dryad,” Yvan says as he raises a gold-glowing palm. I pull in a shivering breath in response to the potent gathering of his power. “We are not your enemies,” he emphatically states, warning shot through his level tone. “Don’t force me to move against you.”

Oaklyyn steps toward Yvan, smiling viciously at him as two more wolverines emerge from the forest edging the clearing, dark fur bristling, and her staff takes on a pulsing green glow. “Take care, winged,” she warns in turn. “We don’t worship you as some savior.”

“Yet you’ve cast Elloren as the Prophecy’s demon?” Yvan sharply rejoins, his hot hand rigid around mine.

“Oaklyyn,” Sylvan puts down harshly, “III hasmarkedher.”

“A kindredmustcome,” Lyptus insists, fixing me with a predatory look.

I reach for my wand branch, both my power and Yvan’s flaring defensively just as a powerfulcawsplits the sky. We all look up, the breath wrenched from my throat as ravens bigger than horses burst through the canopy of leaves. I raise a hand to shield myself, branches crackling and raining down as the enormous flock lands around us with great, earth-jostlingthumps.

And on the back of one of these impossibly huge ravens sits Tierney Calix, her blue-tressed head peeking over the shoulder of a black-clad, pale Fae male with midnight-dark eyes, lips, and hair. Gleaming obsidian horns rise from his head, and a small raven is perched on his shoulder.

“Tierney...” I manage. The giant ravens all set their gleaming, coal-dark eyes on me.

“Elloren...you’re Fae,” Tierney marvels as images from the Gardnerian holy book flood my mind—stories of the giant raven the prophetess Galliana rode to war against demons.

“The Errilorhave returned,” Sylvan says, his voice low with awe.

A resonantcawsounds, and I turn as the largest of the ravens struts toward me. The dark bird leans its massive head down as if in offering. The other ravens still, a momentous tension gathering on the air.

“Touch the Errilor’kin, Guardian,” Flora murmurs, and I’m amazed by the acceptance in her tone. Feeling as if I’ve been thrust into mythical territory, I step forward, reach out and touch the raven’s silken head.

The moment I make contact, I sense the flock’s collective exhale through my rootlines, a connection clicking into place, like a lock fastening.

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