Page 135 of The Demon Tide

Nervous anticipation ripples through my fire power as I hold out my wand hand. Sage grips my wrist and begins to mark a bright green rune onto my palm, a slight sting chasing her stylus’s movement.

“Yvan Guryev,” Ra’Ven says in a poignant tone as Sage works.

A portion of Yvan’s fire flares toward Ra’Ven, and I’m surprised by the rush of emotion rippling through it. “It’s been a long time, my friend,” Yvan says as they step toward each other and embrace.

“We will finally be able to meet as we truly are,” Ra’Ven says as they pull back, gripping each other’s shoulders while Sage finishes crafting the rune. “Release the glamour if you wish it,” Ra’Ven offers with a significant look. “I know all too well what a burden it is.”

With an intense glance at both Sagellyn and Ra’Ven, Yvan draws off his cloak and lowers his head. A hard breath escapes me as his dark wings fan out from his muscular back and I press back the tortuous urge to move into the heat of his aura. A burning flush suffuses my neck as Yvan flexes his wings, and Sage and Ra’Ven look him over, momentarily riveted.

“What a turn of events,” Sage murmurs, giving us both a look of vast compassion. “The Prophecy standing before us.”

Defiance shoots through Yvan’s fire. “I don’t believe in prophecies,” he states with cutting emphasis, a ribbon of his heat flashing out to encircle me, his transient caress only stoking my flush hotter.

“Nor I,” Ra’Ven staunchly agrees.

“Your Icaral child,” Yvan says to Ra’Ven, “he’s here in the sublands, as well?”

Ra’Ven nods. “Under heavy guard, as you can well imagine.”

“It preyed on me,” Yvan says, “how Vogel targeted him. Ra’Ven... I’m sorry he got caught up in this.”

“We’reallcaught up in it,” Ra’Ven states, immovable insistence in his silver gaze. “And the Mages’ atrocities arenotyour doing.” He grasps Yvan’s shoulder, and Yvan nods stiffly, a tormented heat flickering through his aura that tightens my heart.

“Is Fyn’ir well?” I ask Sage, remembering the gentle, winged babe I met in Amaz lands.

“He is,” she assures me. “But, as you both know, Vogel’s reach extends to the Eastern Realm. And the Gardnerians aren’t the only religious fanatics who want the Icarals dead.”

“Which poses a problem,” Professor Kristian puts in from beside us. “Seeing as how Yvan has just announced his presence here in the Eastern Realm quite dramatically.” He gives Yvan a pointed look that Yvan meets unflinchingly.

“My people have claimed the Eastern Sublands as a safe haven for Icarals,” Ra’Ven says. “I seek to claim them as a refuge foreveryonefleeing the persecution of either Realm.”

“You need to get Elloren and Yvan farther underground,” Kam Vin cuts in, looking to Ra’Ven, “where your warding is more potent. Nilon and I will remain here and stand sentry.”

Ra’Ven reaches into his tunic’s pocket and tosses her a Smaragdalfar rune stone. “Contact me through this if you need to, Kamitra.”

Kam Vin pockets the stone before she and Ni Vin depart.

I look to Sage. “The trees have an incredibly strong hold on me. Chi Nam, Lukas, and Valasca couldn’t break it, even working together. And I think it’s getting stronger.”

She nods. “Which is why we’re gathering allies who possess a great deal of elemental magic.” She hesitates. “Even so, freeing you is a dangerous task, Elloren, there’s no way around it.”

“How dangerous?” Yvan interjects, protective concern rising in his fire.

Sage eyes him evenly. “Dangerous. Elloren’s elemental power is Dryad based. It’s completely linked to the trees.”

I touch Yvan’s arm and a spark ignites between us, his fiery eyes meeting mine. I drop my hand, my pulse thudding with renewed contrition over our effect on each other.

I turn to Sage. “I want my power back. Get me free of the Forest.”

Sage gestures toward a tunnel up ahead. “Come, then.” Intensity fires in her purple eyes. “We’ll gather with the others and get your power unbound.”

We follow Sage and Ra’Ven down a series of stony, spiraling staircases, then through a narrow tunnel that eventually spills into a shimmering cavern that widens my eyes. Black crystalline stalactites hang from the cave’s low ceiling, another inky river lazily streaming beside us, everything ethereally lit green by the varg runes marked on the walls.

Relief spreads through me to find Trystan, my uncle Wrenfir, and my cousin Or’myr already waiting there.

Along with the most outlandish Alfsigr Elf I’ve ever seen.

The Elf leans casually against the cave wall, an irreverent smile on his ivory mouth. That alone is deeply surprising—the Alfsigr are generally such an enigmatically blank-faced people. And his sculptural, bone-white features and short, snow-hued hair are streaked with a rainbow of colors, which strikes me as revolutionary—it’s written right into the Alfsigr faith that they are to wear nothing but silver and white, just as Mages are bound to our sacred blacks and permitted hues. There’s an outrageous splash of rainbow glitter decorating the Elf’s silver eyes, and his finely tailored ivory tunic is covered in silvery Alfsigr runes that light him up with their shimmering luminescence, his tunic edged with a riot of gems of every prismatic hue. This has to be the rune sorcerer Elf that Or’myr told me of. The Elf skilled in tracking spells who joined the Western Realm Resistance.

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