Page 150 of The Demon Tide

Where Vogel’s army is gathering as it gets ready to advance across the desert toward the Eastern Realm.

Even the Xishlon moon’s thrall can’t soften that.

“I should fetch more zoisite,” Or’myr says, more serious now. “I’ll be back shortly.”

Protest rises in me. “Wait... Or’myr...you can’t leave me here alone.”

His lips quirk as he takes in the rune blades strapped all over me. “Elloren, not only are you in a well-warded, invisible Vonor, you’re heavily armed with perfect aim. And I’ve shown you how to use the runic explosives I have stored here.”

“Vogel’strackingme...”

“Not toherehe isn’t. And unless he can strip the color purple from the world, he can’t come here. This is the safest possible place in all the Realm for you to be.” A cautionary light enters his gaze. “Just don’t leave.”

“All right,” I reluctantly concede.

“I’ll only be gone for an hour or so,” he says, glancing at the moon as if it’s a charming nuisance. He reaches into his pocket and hands me a purple-rune-imprinted stone. “Press the center of that if you have need of me. I’ve got you covered, cousin.”

I nod, and he turns and strides toward the terrace’s open door.

“Or’myr,” I call out to him, and he pauses in the door’s threshold. “If the world doesn’t come to an end, we’ll find you your Wyvern girl.”

Amusement glints in his eyes. “I’m counting on it,” he shoots back before disappearing inside.

I watch, a moment later, as he boards the rune skiff docked on the lower-level terrace. The runes on the skiff’s sides begin to whir and Or’myr zips off toward the docks, his hand briefly lifting in farewell. I continue to peer after him as he flies through his Vonor’s translucent barrier and both he and the skiff disappear against the mountain peak’s purple stone for a bit before reappearing much lower, quickly blending in with the dense Xishlon air traffic.

Cradling my magic-infused wand arm, I bask in the city’s festive, purple show for a long while, my gaze sliding every so often toward the Wyvernguard island-mountains rising up from the river—the only spots untouched by purple Xishlon decorations, so many Vu Trin soldiers already deployed west of the Vo Mountains and so many more en route over the desert toward the Western Realm.

Vulnerable.

The word lingers at the back of my mind, cutting through the swoony purple light just as the tracking rune on my hand flashes silver.

My gaze flies toward the rune.

It’s burning silver, its internal compasses sweeping around their circular confines, trailing light, hours before they should be.

“What?” I gasp. “How...”

The needles still, hurling me into alarm and confusion as I read Lukas’s location in the tracking rune.

PART FOUR

Xishlon Moon

CHAPTER ONE

LIGHTNINGKISS

Or’myr Syll’vir

Xishlon night, twenty-first hour

Or’myr struggles to stay sharp as the dense grove of lilac Noi Wisteria closes in around him. He quickens his pace through the expansive First Tier gardens toward his rune skiff, his tunic’s pocket weighted down with more zoisite.

Vo’s Holy Teeth, the damnedpurple.

A mind-lulling euphoria rises in his chest as the trees’ glowing fronds rain down all around him, the garden path fronted by luminous violet flowers of every night-blooming variety—Xishlon roses, jasmine, creamy lilac orchids. Luminescent lavender night-lilies twine around the trees in a supple caress.

Or’myr frowns and tenses his lines in an effort to fight off the color’s enchanting lure. The lavender moon’s thrall certainly doesn’t help. Try as he might, he can’t suppress the way it prompts his heart’s most loving desires to rise. Melancholy thoughts of Tierney fill his mind, his longing to be more than a friend to her near impossible to press back.

---