Page 76 of The Demon Tide

His head whips toward me. “What do you mean?”

“He can destroy Noi runes with a flick of his wand. Even advanced military runes. He killed the Vu Trin’s most elite portal sorceress, Chi Nam.” My voice roughens around the memory, the lash of grief bitingly sharp. “There was nothing I could do to stop him, since the trees...they’ve bound up my power.”

A jagged flash of lightning forks through my brother’s affinity aura. “Keep low and I’ll land somewhere hidden.” He casts me a poignant look and I realize, in one dizzying swoop, why we need to hide.He’s being closely watched. Because he’s my brother.

He swerves, angling up, and as the skiff tilts I get a glimpse through the lessening haze of the river’s western bank. Fright punches through me.

The knot of scorpios on the river’s western bank has grown, rain-blurred shadows from this distance, but their insectile motion is unmistakable. A bolt of lightning flashes down toward them as the horned, winged man swoops in, the creatures shrieking and scattering as they’re mercilessly cut down.

“Those scorpios,” I say to Trystan, my voice a rasp as I shiver from the damp. “They’re after me.”

He throws another fraught glance my way. “The Gardnerians managed to set up a portal and sent a number of those creatures through. The Vu Trin shut it down, but we’re still dealing with those things. Hold on tight.” He gestures toward a wooden handhold.

I grasp hold of it as the skiff swoops up dramatically and my body skids backward, the river rapidly contracting in size as Trystan flies toward the storm band atop the Vo Mountains. The monstrous mass of clouds enlarges, lit up by streaks of lightning. Trystan taps the controls, and a translucent sapphire shield flows over us, encasing the skiff, rain driven back as Trystan swipes the chilling moisture away from our clothes with a flick of his wand.

We penetrate the storm band and the skiff begins to vibrate disturbingly, the storm a battering roar, roiling clouds pressing in. We abruptly dive downward, and my stomach lurches as Trystan points his wand skyward and murmurs a spell.

A blast of air streaks out from his wand through the shield, blowing the storm back to form a cloud-dome around us. Then Trystan arcs his wand downward, blasting out air to extend the cleared space, a landscape of jagged black peaks becoming visible below.

He guides us into a rocky depression, huge shards of pitch-dark stone rising around us as he lands. Then he points his wand straight up and draws the storm-dome down until it forms a curved ceiling of lightning-spitting chaos just above our sheltered fissure. He taps a rune on the control board, and the skiff’s runic shield as well as all other light blinks out save one small rune. Bathed in dim sapphire light, Trystan sheathes his wand and turns to me.

Our eyes lock, our magical auras burgeoning as a storm of emotion gives way, my ribs feeling as if they might burst from it.

We surge toward each other, Trystan coming down onto one knee before me as we fall into a protective embrace and everything I’ve been holding so tightly inside fractures wide-open. I’m unable to fight back the tears, my beloved brother’s back so solid and real beneath my palms.

“How did you ever find me?” I rasp into his shoulder.

“Spiders,” Trystan rasps back, surprising me. “There’s a Fae...she got word of incoming refugees from the spiders, only I didn’t know one of them wasyou...because of the glamour...”

“I feared I’d never see you again.” I can barely breathe through my relief.

“I feared I’d never seeyou.”

I draw a fraction away, my brother’s sapphire-lit face blurred by my tears. “Where’s Rafe? Is he all right?”

Trystan nods, his voice choked. “He’s fine. Everyone’s fine.” He cups the sides of my face, his cheeks streaked with tears. “The Vu Trin told us you were likely dead. But I didn’t believe it.”

My heart tightens. “Trystan, Vogel has Lukas.”

His brow furrows. “Lukas Grey?”

The words come in an impassioned rush. “He’s on our side. I thought he died saving me, getting me east through a portal, but I saw him through a rune. Vogel has him. I have to get my power unbound so I can go after him.”

Trystan pulls in a deep breath, then takes firm hold of my hand, an expression of calm descending as his power consolidates around me. “Tell me everything that’s happened.”

Tripping over the words, I tell him all of it. How I was separated from Yvan and brought to the desert to train. How I created a river of fire with the candle lighting spell, and a faction of the Vu Trin turned against me and tried to kill me. How I had to flee to Gardneria and seek Lukas’s protection to keep Noilaan’s Vu Trin army from slaying me, and then...how Lukas revealed himself to be on the side of the Resistance and we escaped from Vogel via the only means possible—a Sealing ceremony.

And how, thinking Yvan dead, I fell in love with Lukas Grey.

I tell him how Lukas, Valasca, and Chi Nam brought me to the Agolith Desert and taught me to fight, willing to sacrifice their lives to save me and send me East.

To be a weapon for the East.

“Vogel can destroyhigh-levelNoi military runes.Easily,”I stress. “Which means he can strike down the runic domes of both Amazakaraan and Noilaan and march right into both countries.”

Trystan’s expression remains calm, but a torrent of lightning is crackling through his lines. “Ren, the Eastern Realm will be essentially defenseless if Vogel can dismantle Vu Trin runes. And the city would collapse. Much of Noilaan’s architecture is held up by dome-supported runes. And all the rune ships here, like this one...the water ships too...they’re all powered by the dome. That’s why they can’t stray far from the border.”

I hold my brother’s intense gaze. “Which is why you need to warn the Vu Trin and the Amaz.Immediately.”

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